Wyers, Marilyn. 2019. Exploring pre-professional musicians’ experiences of a somatic movementapproach as a practice method for musical phrasing. Doctoral thesis, Goldsmiths, University ofLondon [Thesis]

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1

Exploring pre-professional musicians’

experiences of a somatic movement approach as

a practice method for musical phrasing

Marilyn Wyers

Submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Goldsmiths, University of London

May 2019

2

Declaration

This thesis is a presentation of my own original research work. Wherever contributions

of others are involved, every effort has been made to indicate this clearly with due

reference to the literature and acknowledgements of collaborative research and

discussions.

I hereby declare that this thesis has not been and will not be submitted, in whole or in

part, to another University for the award of any other degree.

Signature: __________________________ Marilyn Wyers

Date: 20th May 2019

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Acknowledgements

It would not have been possible to write this doctoral thesis without the help and support

of those around me, and it is only possible to give particular mention to some of them

here. Above all, I would like to thank my partner, Brian, for his personal support and

great patience, and for believing in me at all times. My warmest thanks go to my mother

and my late aunt for their reassurance throughout my studies and to my friends, Harriet

and Mark, for their helpful involvement at various stages of the research process.

My deepest gratitude goes to my supervisors, Dr John Jessel and Dr Jill Halstead. I am

grateful to them for showing confidence in me and for offering incisive comments,

invaluable suggestions and words of support every step of the way. I would also like to

thank Dr David Frego, whose far-reaching knowledge and understanding of Dalcroze

Eurhythmics led to my interest in the role of body movement in musical performance

practice and the late Dr Robert Abrahamson, whose tireless spirit and inspiration

continue to guide my development as a pianist, dancer and teacher.

I would like to acknowledge the academic and administrative support of Goldsmiths,

University of London, particularly the departments of Music and Educational Studies, for

providing me with the opportunity to perform in many enjoyable concerts and to present

that work as support for this research. I am most grateful to Neil March for composing

Diversions for solo piano. It was particularly kind of him to allow me to refer to his work

in this study. Finally, I thank my research participants for their time, commitment,

openness and enthusiasm throughout the workshops and interview sessions that I held

to complete my thesis.

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Abstract

This thesis explores pre-professional musicians’ experiences of a Somatic Movement

approach as a practice method for musical phrasing. It develops possibilities for music

performance learning through Enactive perspectives and the principles of Somatics.

The Enactivist-based notion of Image Schemata, proposed by Mark Johnson (1987,

2007) and George Lakoff (Lakoff & Johnson 1980), is drawn upon to consider ways in

which sensorimotor interaction can establish patterns of understanding of musical

phrasing. In conjunction, Somatic Movement approaches including Laban Movement

Analysis/Bartenieff Fundamentals (LMA/BF) and Skinner Releasing Technique (SRT)

are used to look at how the application of a Somatic Movement-inspired approach can

be an important mediator in helping performers fulfil their musical phrasing intentions

with a greater sense of ease and agency.

Using a hermeneutic phenomenological approach, seven undergraduate students of

western classical music performance participated in a series of Somatic Movement-

inspired workshops (six in the pilot study and one in the main study). The workshops,

which were video-recorded, focused on Somatic Movement/music exercises and

explorations. Observation, individual interviews and video-assisted recall were used to

collect data, which also acted as feedback to the participants. Laban-inspired

Kestenberg ‘Shape Flow’ categories were used to look at participants’ movement

patterns and the musical material. Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis was used to

analyse the interview data allowing participants’ experiences to be examined

ideographically and in detail. Themes identified included Embodiment, Musical

Intentionality, Performer Agency and Learner Autonomy. The potential contribution of

these findings toward developing a framework that supports a pedagogical orientation of

embodiment for pre-professional music students in higher education was discussed.

The implications and benefits concerning attending to movement and, the shaping and

refining of pre-professional music students’ own practice as reflective learners and as

future embodied music performers were considered.

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Declaration 2

Acknowledgements 3

Abstract 4

Chapter 1: Pathways 12

1.1 Introduction 12

1.2 The thesis 19

1.3 Research setting 20

1.4 Thesis structure 23

Chapter 2: Embodied experience in music performance learning and development

27

2.1 Introduction 27

2.2 Embodiment 28

2.3 Embodied experience within music performance learning and development

processes 33

2.4 Fundamental Somatic principles and Enactive perspectives 39

2.4.1 Skinner Releasing Technique (SRT) 45

2.4.2 Sensory imagery and practising the piano 48

2.5 Relevance of Somatic pedagogy for music students 52

2.6 Enactivism: Image Schemata and embodied musical experience 57

2.6.1 Concepts of musical phrasing and Image Schemata 69

2.7 Towards a Somatic–Enactive approach 73

2.8 Summary 75

Chapter 3: Research design and methodology 77

3.1 Introduction 77

3.2 Research paradigm 77

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3.3 Research methodology 79

3.4 The pilot study participants 84

3.5 Data collecting methods 86

3.5.1 Reflexive preparatory exercise 86

3.5.2 The workshops: the pilot study 87

3.5.3 Interviews 92

3.5.4 Video-assisted recall 94

3.6 The role of the researcher in data collection 96

3.7 Ethical conduct of the research 97

3.8 Data analysis methods 99

Chapter 4: Moving musicians: a pilot study 106

4.1 Introduction 106

4.2 The movement/music exercises 106

4.3 Analysis of the movement data 109

4.4 Example of movement data analysis: Joey 110

4.5 From movement to music to movement 117

4.6 Summary 119

Chapter 5: Interviews after movement/music workshop: analysis 122

5.1 Introduction 122

5.2 Interview data analysis 122

5.2.1 Extract 1: Joey’s focus on movement, improvisation and musical structure 122

5.2.2 Extract 2: Minna’s focus on opening doors, letting go and feeling secure in her

body 129

5.2.3 Extract 3: Jacq’s focus on well-being, physical exercise 133

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5.2.4 Extract 4: Tunday’s focus on freedom to explore, group interaction and being

in-the-moment 134

5.2.5 Extract 5: Mercedes’ focus on unresponsive movement, restrictions and self-

discovery 137

5.3 Searching for patterns in emergent themes 139

5.3.1 Theme A: widening possibilities for exploring musical meaning 144

5.3.2 Theme B: tension and release; holding on and letting go 149

5.3.3 Theme C: making connections; outside–inside 150

5.4 Reflections on the pilot study and focus of the main study 152

5.5 Summary 155

Chapter 6: The main study: working with a pianist 157

6.1 Introduction 157

6.2 Research strategy for the main study: single case study 159

6.3 Research methods revisited: re-shaping the workshop design 159

6.3.1 Movement/music workshop: procedure 159

6.3.2 The movement/music exercises 162

6.4 Research procedure overview 167

6.5 Introducing the main study research participant 168

6.6 Summary 169

Chapter 7: The main study: data analysis 170

7.1 Introduction 170

7.2 Workshop 1: sound and movement analysis 171

7.3 Analysis of post-workshop unstructured interview 172

7.3.1 Searching for patterns in emergent themes 190

7.4 Analysis of the follow-up performance of Diversions 193

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7.5 Reappraisal of themes using IPR 200

7.6 Summary 220

Chapter 8: The main study: interpretation and discussion of findings 223

8.1 Introduction 223

8.2 Super-ordinate theme A: Embodiment 223

8.3 Super-ordinate theme B: Musical Intentionality 227

8.4 Super-ordinate theme C: Performer Agency 230

8.5 Super-ordinate theme D: Learner Autonomy 232

8.6 Reflection on the relationship between the findings and the theoretical concept of

Image Schemata 234

8.7 Summary 247

Chapter 9: Concluding comments 249

9.1 Introduction: Revisiting the empirical findings and addressing the research

questions of the main study. 249

9.2 Subsidiary research question 1: How does a pre-professional student pianist fulfil

their own musical phrasing intentions through a Somatic Movement approach away

from the piano keyboard? 250

9.3 Subsidiary research question 2: How does a pre-professional student pianist

describe their experience of a Somatic Movement approach to supporting their

learning and development as future professional pianists, with a focus on musical

phrasing? 252

9.4 Subsidiary research question 3: How does a pre-professional student pianist apply

their Somatic Movement experiences to the way they practise and implement their

musical phrasing intentions both at and away from the piano keyboard? 253

9.5 Theoretical implications 256

9.6 Limitations of the study 263

9.7 Implications for practice and future research 264

9.8 Concluding remarks 266

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References 267

Appendices 295

Appendix A 295

Appendix B 307

Appendix C 315

Appendix D 317

Appendix E 318

Appendix F 319

Appendix G 320

Appendix H 321

Appendix I 323

Appendix J 329

Appendix K 332

Appendix L 338

Appendix M 340

Appendix N 341

Appendix O 363

Appendix P 365

Appendix Q 367

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List of figures

Figure 2.1 Axis Balance schema (Johnson 1987: 86) 63

Figure 2.2 Container schema (Saslaw 1996: 219) 66

Figure 2.3 Source–Path–Goal schema (Saslaw 1996: 219) 68

Figure 2.4 Centre–Periphery schema (Johnson 1987: 124) 72

Figure 3.1 Workshop outline: pilot study 90

Figure 3.2 The stages of analysis for a single case (Smith, Flowers and Larkin 2009: 82)

103

Figure 4.1 Joey preparing to move to the music 111

Figure 4.2 Joey shaping in space around him as he moves with the ball to the first

phrase of Gnossienne No.1 by Erik Satie 113

Figure 4.3 Diagram showing Joey's reach space patterns to the first two phrases of

Satie's Gnossienne No. 1 114

Figure 4.4 Diagram showing Joey's spatial pathways patterns to the first two phrases of

Satie's Gnossienne No. 1 115

Figure 4.5 Diagram showing a condensed version of Joey's Spatial Pathways patterns

to the first two phrases of Satie's Gnossienne No. 1 115

Figure 4.6 Diagram showing Joey’s use of specific design factors to the first two

phrases of Satie's Gnossienne No.1 116

Figure 5.1 Overarching themes 140

Figure 5.2 Main connecting themes across the group: Theme A 141

Figure 5.3 Life and movement 148

Figure 5.4 Our ‘felt flow’ of experience 152

Figure 6.1 Diversions by Neil March; bars 1–5 showing participant’s pre-workshop

phrasing contours in black and post-workshop in red 161

Figure 6.2 Beethoven’s Piano Sonata in C Minor Op.10 No.1 (edited by Barry Cooper,

ABRSM 1979); bars 1–25 showing participant’s pre-workshop phrasing contours in

black and post-workshop in red 161

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Figure 6.3 Marionette movement 163

Figure 6.4 Alex shaping space 164

Figure 6.5 Alex shaping flow 165

Figure 7.1 Opening four bars of Diversions 171

Figure 7.2 Observation of Alex’s silent preparatory movements (3) 194

Figure 7.3 Bar 11 to first beat of Bar 12 of Diversions 196

Figure 7.4 Bars 48–56 (a) and 56–63 (b) Beethoven Sonata in C Minor Op.10 No.1

Edited by Barry Cooper 2007: ABRSM Publications 207

Figure 8.1 Diversions Bar 8 239

Figure 8.2 Alex showing tension and release in Bars 1 and 2 of Diversions using a

Thera-Band 242

Figure 8.3 Bars 57–63 of Beethoven Sonata in C Minor Op.10 No.1 243

Figure 8.4 Alex exploring tension and release in Bars 56–59 of Beethoven Sonata in C

Minor Op. 10 No.1 by stretching away from his body and releasing back into it using a

Thera-Band 244

Figure 8.5 Alex showing multi-directional movement patterns 247

List of tables

Table 3.1 Workshop design outline 90

Table 7.1 Super-ordinate themes and themes from Alex’s account 192

Table 7.2 Comprehensive table of super-ordinate themes 215

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Chapter 1: Pathways

Music moves. And something in the way it moves moves us. Mark Johnson and Steve Larson (2003: 63)

1.1 Introduction

How do pre-professional music performance students experience practising musical

phrasing? How do they learn to phrase a piece of music with clarity and sense of

agency? How does our knowledge and experience of different theories, practices and

discussions direct our response to these questions? And how might such frameworks or

models be applied to help musicians gain deeper understandings of their experiences of

exploring, implementing and communicating their musical phrasing ideas and intentions

as they prepare work for performance? This thesis explores these questions across a

range of overlapping disciplines including music performance pedagogy, learning

theory, philosophy, psychology, dance movement theory and analysis, Somatic practice

and musicology through the fields of:

Phenomenology – In general, phenomenology can be understood in either of

two ways: as a disciplinary field in philosophy or, as a movement in the history of

philosophy. The discipline of phenomenology may be defined initially as the

philosophical study of structures of everyday lived experience, or consciousness.

Seen in this way, phenomenology is the study of a ‘phenomena’: the appearance

of things, or things as they appear in our experience, or in the way we experience

things, thus the meaning things have in our experience. Phenomenology studies

conscious experience as experienced from the first person point of view (Husserl

1913/1989; Heidegger 1927/2008; Sheets-Johnstone 1999; 2009; 2015).

Somatic Movement practice – Somatic Movement practice focuses on the

internal experience of movement. As well as used within education and therapy it

also touches upon the arts. The philosopher and Somatic educator Thomas

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Hanna first identified the field and began to use the expression ‘Somatics’ in

1976 as an ‘umbrella term for bodily experiential practices that privilege

subjective experience’ (Fortin 2002: 128). Hanna defined Somatics ‘as the field

which studies the soma; namely the body as understood from within by first

person perception’ (Hanna 1993: 198). Helpfully making a distinction between

the ‘body’ and the ‘soma’ he suggested that when a human being is observed

from the outside – that is, from the third person viewpoint it is the phenomenon of

the human ‘body’ that is perceived. Yet when this same human being is observed

from the first-person viewpoint by their own proprioceptive senses, a different

phenomenon is perceived: the human ‘soma’ (Hanna: ibid.) In other words,

Somatics sees the subjective experience as a way of looking at oneself from the

inside out whereby one becomes aware of feelings, sensations and intentions, as

well as a way of looking objectively from the outside in (Emslie 2017: 1). As such

it does not understand the study of the body as reducible to third-person

viewpoints of observation and perception, but rather in terms of self-directed

activity that characterizes the interrelationship between the inner and outer

experience of living. As a theoretical framework, Somatics explores such

interplay in the context of a person’s way of learning about, coming to know and

being in the world.

Enactivism – This is an interdisciplinary branch of Embodied Cognitive Science

that argues that cognition arises though a dynamic interaction of mind, body and

the environment (Varela et al. 1991; Thompson and Stapleton 2009; Johnson

2007, 2017). Put simply, the Enactive approach sees the mind as deeply

continuous with the basic processes of life. As such, it does not understand

cognition as reducible to ‘in-the-head’ processes of computation and

representation, but rather in terms of the self-organizing activity that

characterizes the co-emergent relationship between an autonomous living being

and its environment (Maturana & Varela 1980; 1992; van der Schyff 2017).

In doing so, this thesis contributes to knowledge in philosophy, Somatics and music

performance learning and development. It does this by bringing together practical and

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theoretical frameworks that lead toward developing a pedagogical orientation of

embodiment for pre-professional music students in higher education, with a more

distinct focus on piano playing. These include: a) a Somatic–Enactive approach for

music performance learning and development; b) embodied and Enactive viewpoints on

musical understanding and experience of musical phrasing; c) discussion on the uses of

phenomenological research and related embodied-Somatic methods for investigating

student musicians’ direct experiences of embodied learning strategies; d) explorations

of the continuous interplay of movement and cognition involved in coming up with,

implementing and communicating musical phrasing ideas; and e) the positing of a

kinaesthetic model of musical phrasing.

How we view our bodies, the way we inhabit our bodies and our experience of ‘body’ in

music performance learning and development contexts is varied (Reeve 2011).1

Although this statement may seem obvious, it is important that I clarify my own view and

my leanings towards Somatic and Enactive perspectives, as these correspond with this

thesis and my respect for embodied experiential educational practice. However,

research into connected aspects of other perspectives has helped me to define my own

position and viewpoint.

In the context of Embodied Music Cognition, researchers see the body as a mediator

between the mind and the physical environment. In this field of study the body is

objectified and the focus is on investigating the impact of human movement on musical

meaning. They use quantitative methods to measure the relationships between sound

and movement, and statistical analysis and computational models to build up

knowledge about the role of the movement in musical meaning formation (Godøy &

Leman 2010, Leman 2008, Zbikowski 1997; 2008). On the other hand, writers in the

field of Somaesthetics view the body as a living, breathing entity and embrace the

experience of the body as a means of knowing about the world (Shusterman 2012). My

understanding of how we view our bodies is closely linked to this idea of embodiment.

Although I discuss the concept of ‘embodiment’ in greater detail in Chapter 2, it is

1 For a general overview of key concepts of ‘the body’ see Blackman 2008, Reeve 2011, and Shilling

2016.

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important to note here that my understanding of the term refers to a way of being and

knowing that recognizes that the body, brain, mind and the environment in which we live

are in constant interplay as we engage in acquiring knowledge and living our lives in the

world. In doing so, when I write about ‘bodies’ I use this term mostly as a shorthand for

the embodied human as a whole (Shilling 2016: 6). In part, this is to clarify my position

regarding my consideration of the understanding of embodiment in terms of Somatic

theory and what Lisa Blackman terms ‘the somatically felt body’ (Blackman 2008).

Blackman’s description of the somatically felt body as having an aliveness or vitality that

is literally felt or sensed resonates with my understanding of the body in the context of

music performance learning and development. In particular, my view aligns with her

idea that this understanding of the body cannot necessarily be reduced to physiological

processes or to the effect of social structures. However, at the same time, my

understanding also includes aspects of an Enactive view of the body and embodiment

in that the socio-cultural and ecological dimensions play a part in the way the mind,

body and environment interact as individual musicians explore and find meaning in the

music they play (van der Schyff, 2017). These two perspectives of the body are the

grounding for my exploration in this thesis regarding the development of a Somatic-

Enactive framework toward an embodied pedagogy for music performance students in

higher education.

The thesis may also be understood to offer theoretical and practical grounding from the

perspectives of multi-sensory imagery, experiential learning, Somatics, Enactivism and

dance movement theory. Each of these shifts a number of embedded assumptions

about the nature of music performance learning, the understanding of musical phrasing

and what it means to fulfil musical phrasing intentions with clarity, security and individual

agency. The relevance of the thesis is in its address to the dualist culture of

disembodiment in music performance learning and development and the importance of

re-embodiment for music performance students in professional training programmes.

Further, it challenges the prevailing dominant viewpoint that our brains and minds are

the powerhouse of knowledge acquisition and that the body is merely the carrier of the

brain and mind. One issue with this analogy is that it assumes the brain and mind is like

a computer determining our connections and interactions making our body and physical

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experiences inconsequential. Thinking is reduced to a programming language, the

manipulation of symbols by rules that are carried out by the body, not influenced by it.

Seen in this way, learning to play an instrument can be reduced to a mechanistic

process of inputs and outputs that can minimize an awareness of the body as a whole,

compromise feelings of comfort and satisfaction, and undermine performer agency. For

example, practising, which is one of the challenges of learning a musical instrument,

helps students to improve and allow changes to occur in their playing. However, it can

be become overly mechanistic if too much focus is placed on disembodied or

mechanical repetition. Repetition is, however, an important device which can assist

technical issues and more fluent recall. The issue is, perhaps, that the more embedded

mechanical repetition becomes the more difficult it is to change what has been learnt

(Kleinman and Buckoke 2015: 232). Kleinman and Buckoke suggest that it is important

that musicians develop the flexibility to change what they have learnt in an instant,

especially in an ensemble situation where musicians may need to change things they

may have learnt during their individual practice time to work collaboratively with other

musicians. This suggests that an alternative approach to practice may be helpful for

musicians if they want to build in flexibility and the ability to reassess the outcome of

their performance and make changes quickly and with ease. One way of approaching

this is to encourage musicians to practice with a sense of awareness of the whole body

within the context of the particular environment in which they are working (such as

individual practice, ensemble rehearsal and so on) – in an embodied way. For example,

it can be very useful to practice away from the instrument, making use of imaginary

practice (thinking/moving through playing whole or part of pieces) or use of physical

objects such as balls and Thera-Bands (stretchy bands used for resistance training) to

bounce out the rhythm or explore the elasticity of a phrase. Objects like these can help

students experience novel ways of clarifying their musical intentions with regard to

developing a relationship with the environment as well as individually connecting with

their own musical ideas and intentions. Practising away from the instrument can also

help students to improve sight reading and memorization of music as they think through

or/and move through the piece they are practising rather than playing passages over

and over again without apparent improvement. In this way, an embodied approach to

17

practising can help students to be aware of the balance between playing, analysing the

score, planning and practising. They may perhaps use a breathing exercise when

planning the shaping of a musical phrase providing an dynamic, interactive context that

may become integral to a productive practice session (Biel 2015: 48–49).

An embodied approach to knowing poses a growing challenge to traditional western

culture of music performance learning and development and questions the information-

processing model of knowledge acquisition. Developments in mindbody re-unification

research in adult learning and epistemology have turned attention, once again, to

Somatic learning and the exploration of how bodily knowing can inform students’

learning and teachers’ practice (Horst 2008; Paparo 2015; Fortin 2011; Emslie 2017).

Questioning the information-processing model of knowledge acquisition in music

performance learning and development, I argue against a computer analogy. Although I

acknowledge that we may have the capacity for computational thought, this type of

thinking is not the only way we can think and act. We are human beings with thoughts,

feelings, intuitions, sensations, imaginings, movements, intentions, expectations and so

forth that are in constant interplay with our environment. We have the capacity to move

and change the way we experience the world. We can make choices, we can change

our decisions, we can decide not to follow our decisions, we can influence others and

be influenced by others, which can inform the way we experience and make sense of

the world. We have the capacity to be aware of how we move in everyday life and the

ability to change the way we move and the way we think. This can change our

experience of the world in which we live and the way we interact with others.

As human beings, we can use movement to interrelate, allowing us to listen deeply to

ourselves and others. We can be attentive to feelings that allow us and others to do

their best work. Seen in this way, the development of a pedagogical method of

embodiment for higher education music performance learning contexts inspired by the

integration of Somatic and Enactive principles may be viewed as an opportunity to

expand and complement current frameworks. A framework that can give further insight

into embodied ways of being and knowing for student musicians. A foundation that can

support more soundly a Somatic-Enactive approach to maximising an awareness of

18

their bodies as a whole as they fulfil their musical intentions with ease and a sense of

agency through the music they play. This may offer far-reaching benefits for student

musicians, which can help shape and refine their own practice as autonomous learners

and as empowered future professional practitioners.

In a moment, I offer an outline of the thesis. First, however, I would like to guide the

reader to Appendix A, which explains how the interdisciplinary perspective that shaped

this thesis is reflected by my personal development as a musician, dancer, educator

and researcher. This personal introduction is in line with the interpretivist paradigm or

approach I adopted in the thesis. An interpretivist approach emphasizes the meaningful

nature of people’s participation in social and cultural life. It also focuses on an analysis

of the meanings people confer upon their own and other’s actions through primarily

qualitative data (Robson 2002: 549). Given the focus in this thesis on exploring the

meaning of the lived experience of musicians, this would seemed an appropriate

approach to adopt rather than a positivist approach, which favours the use of deductive

logic and quantitative research methods. That said, the use of an interpretive approach

has its implications for doing research involving people. Their behaviour – what they

actually do and say – has to be interpreted in the light of the meanings they attach to

what is going on around them. This implies that the researcher has to concern

themselves with the world of their participants in order to understand them (Robson

2002: 24; Cohen and Manion 2017: 67). In turn, this points to issues of bias and

reliability. In terms of bias, there was a clear link between my role as the researcher and

facilitator and the participants in the empirical part of this thesis. This interactive

relationship related to the subjective nature of this approach and it was important that I

recognized that my own personal, cultural and historical background shaped my

perception of the lived world under investigation and subsequently my interpretation and

discussion of the data (Creswell 2013). As a way of dealing with this issue I reflected on

the research process at various stages and particularly on my facilitation of the

workshops and asked participants to read and approve interview transcriptions and my

interpretation of the written, verbal and video-recorded data. This issue is discussed

further in Chapter 3, Section 3.6.

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1.2 The thesis

Within an interpretive paradigm, this thesis explores the possibilities and potentialities of

coupling Somatic-informed pedagogies and Enactivist positions to develop a

pedagogical method of embodiment for pre-professional music performance students,

with a more distinct focus on piano playing. As mentioned above, this thesis considers a

possible Somatic–Enactivist framework through the perspectives of phenomenology,

Somatic practice and Enactivism. Therefore, there is some repetition and overlap as

core Somatic, Enactive, phenomenological and epistemological themes are introduced

in the context of each chapter. Each chapter develops the discussion on these key

themes and concepts, which hopefully lead to a fuller understanding of them and the

relevance to this thesis.

The empirical part of this thesis involved a phenomenological study into pre-

professional music performance students’ experiences of a Somatic Movement

approach to exploring, implementing and communicating musical phrasing intentions. I

chose a phenomenological perspective as the investigation was primarily concerned

with the study of direct lived experience taken at face value; it was thus ideal for

exploring the individual experiences of the participants (van Manen 2007). By lived

experience, I refer to ‘the way that a person experiences and understands his or her

world as real and meaningful’. Lived meanings describe those aspects of a situation as

experienced by the person in it’ (van Manen 1990: 183). Further discussion of lived

experience, phenomenology and phenomenology as a research methodology can be

found in Chapter 3.

While some of the chapters focus on exploring Somatic–Enactive ideas as a grounding

for epistemological theory more generally, others are concerned with the practical

relevance of Somatic and Enactivist perspectives frameworks in specific contexts –

group and individual music performance workshop, the development of practice

methods/strategies, movement improvisation, musical phrasing and reflection.

Additionally, one chapter focuses on challenging musicological, philosophical and

psychophysical issues associated with the nature of embodied musical experience and

movement, with a particular focus on musical phrasing and, reflects the themes outlined

20

previously. Before I outline each chapter, the next section briefly introduces the

research setting.

1.3 Research setting

The empirical part of the research took place in the context of a western classical music

Somatically-informed movement/music performance workshop within a higher education

music performance environment in the UK. The workshops, which were facilitated by

me and were video-recorded, started with a Somatic Movement warm-up explorations

followed by improvisational movement/music explorations and/or guided Somatic

exercises that explored the phenomena of musical phrasing both away and at the

musical instrument. The exercises/explorations were inspired by Somatic Movement

practice and Enactivist perspectives on cognition. The principal aim of the workshops

was to collect visual, interview, conversational and reflective recall data regarding

participants’ experiences of the workshops in relation to practising musical phrasing

ideas. Attention was given to what was already there, such as the movement of the

breath, the use of gravity, the pouring and shifting of weight, and the support and

stability needed prior to mobilizing and extending in space in preparation to play an

instrument.2

The workshops focused on three aspects of musical phrasing that musicians can make

decisions about, namely: where phrases begin and end/overlap (departure and arrival

moments); how a phrase is shaped and how one phrase transitions into the next

(phrase juncture). Inherent in the Somatic warm-up was the opportunity for participants

to let go of any unnecessary tension, allowing free movement and integration of

imagination with their enquiry into how to relate their movement, breath, gravity, sense

of space, shape and effort and moments of stability and mobility to musical phrasing.

This gave me a unique opportunity to observe individual movement choices and to self-

assess my own practice as a workshop facilitator (see Chapter 3, Section 3.5 for

details). In addition, I was able to start to explore ideas regarding a kinaesthetic model

2 To clarify: I include the voice as an instrument

21

of musical phrasing as an alternative to relying solely on the visual and objective

information gathered from the score or verbal feedback from a teacher.

I chose to focus on musical phrasing as it is seen as a key characteristic of a music

performance and is often implicit in music performance learning and development

contexts in higher education. Further, in western music performance it is one of the

aspects of playing a piece of music where the performer can make their own choices

about how they want to interpret the written notation. For example, issues of tempo,

accent, rubato, dynamics, note duration, articulation, use of weight and inflection are all

subject to a performer’s discretion (Holmgren 2016). In this way, musical phrasing

presents opportunities for the development of performer agency and learner autonomy

with regard to realizing and communicating students’ own musical phrasing ideas about

the music in hand to the listener. But how can a performer learn and develop such

individual interpretative skills? There is often more than one way to consider musical

phrasing issues such as: Where does the phrase begin and end? Which note, notes or

stillnesses are to be emphasized as the focal moments of that phrase? Does the phrase

contain any interior smaller phrases? How are phrase junctures going to be handled –

do phrases overlap, is there a gap or do they make a smooth transition?

Exploring the use of a Somatic-Movement approach to the development of musical

phrasing skills has allowed me to challenge the prevailing theoretical point of view of

what constitutes a musical phasing, which is often understood in parallel to the spoken

or written phrase (Goldsmith 1994). What if musical phrasing can be understood in

parallel to a movement phrase? For instance, a movement phrase ‘generally contains

an inner preparation (intent), the moment of initiation (beginning of movement in the

body), the main action (exertion), a follow-through and recuperation’ (Hackney 2002:

47). Just as every individual organizes and sequences their movements into perceivable

units, which are in some sense meaningful, that is, phrases (ibid.:), can a performer

realize and communicate musical ideas and intentions into units which are in some

sense meaningful by attending to the experience of kinaesthetic sensations? And, if so,

22

how can performers raise their kinaesthetic awareness to develop such skills?3 And

how might this help to support the development of a Somatic–Enactive framework for

music performance learning and development? Through a pilot study, the following

initial research question provided a guide to developing my thoughts and ideas:

How do pre-professional musicians explore, implement and communicate

musical phrasing choices through a Somatic–Enactive approach?

More specifically, the following three sub-questions were addressed:

1. How do pre-professional musicians explore and practise musical phrasing

ideas through a Somatic–Enactive approach away from the instrument?

2. How do pre-professional musicians implement their musical phrasing choices

through a Somatic–Enactive approach away from the instrument?

3. How do pre-professional musicians communicate their experiences of

exploring and implementing their musical phrasing ideas and choices through a

Somatic–Enactive approach away from their instruments?

In addition, the pilot study provided a way of trying out data collecting methods (Baker

1994: 182–183), testing the research process and collecting preliminary data that

helped to refine the design and implementation of the main study. One advantage of

conducting the pilot study was the opportunity to assess whether the proposed methods

– namely observation, interview and video-assisted recall – were appropriate, valid and

not too complicated (De Vaus 1993: 54). Another benefit was the chance to improve

internal validity of the methods I had chosen by asking the participants for feedback

regarding any ambiguities with the research process. Further, I was able to address

issues of researcher bias by asking participants to read and approve interview

transcriptions and the video data I had collected. This allowed me to reflect on the

research process and on my own practice of facilitation, giving me the opportunity to

rethink, redesign, reword and reshape any part of the research process that had caused

3 By kinaesthetic sensations I refer to the attention to the sensation of the movement of their bodies and

noticing what is going on regarding the interplay of body, mind and the environment – ‘a conscious

kinaesthetic awareness of the self in action’ (Batson 2007: 48)

23

difficulties or appeared vague in preparation for the second part of the investigation, that

is, the main study. In particular, I was aware that I needed to make sure the language I

used was somatically informed and that I presented the content of the workshops from a

Somatic perspective. This was a learning process for me, and allowed me to develop

my skills and deepen my knowledge of Somatic practice and a Somatic approach to

movement exploration.

As a result of this reflective process, in the main study my interest shifted from a general

investigation of participant’ movement patterns and their experience of doing the

workshops as a group to a much more focused investigation of one musician – a solo

pianist. My interest here was not only in exploring the movement patterns and

experiences of a soloist but also in how they could transform those experiences into

practical and theoretical tools. Tools that could help the exploration, implementation and

communication of musical phrasing intentions through novel ways to renew, refine and

enrich existing ideas about the music at hand. My main interest was to investigate the

pianist’s lived experience of that process and to make sense of/attribute meaning to

those experiences within the idea of a Somatic–Enactive framework discussed earlier.

In the next section I briefly outline each chapter of the thesis as a way of orientating the

reader.

1.4 Thesis structure

The remainder of the thesis is divided into a further seven chapters.

Chapter 2 introduces the extant literature that has informed the study and that

underpins the empirical work that follows. It explores the embodied experience of music

performance learning. The discussion draws on published research that includes

empirical findings as well as the thoughts and practices of embodied music

practitioners, Somatic Movement educators and experiential learning. In addition,

viewpoints associated with Mark Johnson’s Enactive-based perspective of cognition are

explored. In particular his ideas about the bodily origins of meaning in sensorimotor

processes and in feelings are discussed. Additionally, his view of embodied meaning

emerging as structures of organism-environment interactions or transactions (Johnson

24

2007: xii) is considered. Some aspects of his work are examined with regard to meaning

in music, in particular the concept of musical phrasing. The relevance of a

phenomenological approach to researching embodied music learning experiences, with

a focus on exploring and implementing musical phrasing choices, is considered, and a

kinaesthetic model of musical phrasing is posited.

Chapter 3 introduces and provides a rationale for the selection of an interpretive

research approach and the choice to use a hermeneutic phenomenological

methodology as a way of exploring musicians’ experience of an embodied learning

approach to practising musical phrasing. In addition, the reasons why particular

methods were chosen to collect data – including observation, interview and video-

assisted recall and the methods of analysis including Kestenberg Movement Profiling

(KMP), Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) and Interpersonal Recall (IPR) –

are discussed. Details are given regarding the music/movement workshop context in

which the data collection took place.

Chapter 4 begins with a review of the first steps of the data collection stages of the

empirical investigation: the pilot study. The research process is revisited and further

details are given regarding the content and the implementation of the methods. Readers

are also introduced to the participants through their reflexive accounts, and the

researcher’s role in the research is considered/examined. This chapter also offers an

analysis of the movement data and subsequent discussion.

Chapter 5 presents the analysis of the interviews which were conducted after the pilot

study participants had taken part in the music/movement workshops. Using IPA as an

analysis tool, the story of each participant’s experience of the workshops is unfolded.

The concluding section in this chapter recounts how the pilot study clarified the purpose

of the research, advanced key research questions and helped to narrow down and

reshape the focus of the main study.

Chapter 6 introduces the main study. It returns to the methodological discussion

regarding the rationale for using a hermeneutic phenomenological approach to the

study of individuals’ lived/embodied music learning experience and further explores the

relationship between Somatic and Enactive dimensions and the relevance of

25

phenomenology for an embodied music performance pedagogy and relates how such

insights may be applied to the exploration and implementation of musical phrasing

choices during practice and performance.

Chapter 7 presents the analysis of the movement data collected during the workshops,

the post-workshops interviews and the video-assisted recall sessions. A detailed

account is given of the main study participant’s experience in his own words and

interpretation of the data is explored through drawing together movement and interview

data. In addition, the video-assisted recall data is used to add depth and provide a

deeper understanding of the experience from the participant’s point of view. This

chapter presents the core of the data analysis and interpretation and identifies emerging

super-ordinate themes, possible meanings and patterns in the research.

Chapter 8 focuses on interpretation of the findings and the four super-ordinate themes:

A) Embodiment, B) Musical Intentionality, C) Performer Agency and D) Learner

Autonomy shape the discussion. Each theme is reviewed and discussed with particular

reference to the practical aspects of music performance learning and development

setting out a case for the return to theoretical discussion and links with external sources.

This brings together the movement, music and interview analysis and interpretation. It

expands and deepens the discussion about the meanings attributed to the research

findings in light of Enactive-based perspectives of embodied musical meaning, the

image-schematic structure of musical meaning and conceptual metaphor and musical

motion (Johnson 2007 and 2017) and Somatic-based perspectives.

Chapter 9 returns to the central research question and the three subsidiary research

questions from the main study and provides further insight into how the participant

pianist experienced and made sense of whole body/holistic interactivity to enable

development of greater confidence to accomplish his musical phrasing ideas and

intentions at the piano. The concluding section discusses the implications for developing

and applying a Somatic–Enactive framework to music performer learning contexts in

higher education. The potentialities of a Somatic–Enactive framework introduced in

Chapters 1 and 2 are discussed with regard to how this framework might guide further

epistemological debate and action in music performance learning contexts in higher

26

education, as well as how it might offer a foundation for forms of self-directed and

reflective processes of learning and development of musical phrasing skills. In the final

comments, suggestions drawn from Somatic Movement education and the researcher’s

own experience as a pianist, dancer and educator are offered. The further implications

of the research findings are provided, as well as reflective comments on the research

process.

27

Chapter 2: Embodied experience in music

performance learning and development

Let the movement inside of the body – of breath, of thoughts – move the

outside. Allow the sensations their own time and expression – yawning,

rolling, resting – waiting for a space between the thoughts, an unlocking of

the parts of the body – a gap into which something new can emerge.

(Tufnell and Crickmay 2006: 1)

2.1 Introduction

In this chapter I draw on Somatic Movement Education and Enactivism to discuss

embodied experience as a complementary pedagogical strategy within the context of

music performance learning and development. To begin, I consider the concept of

embodiment, taking into account the dualisms that appear to dominate western

knowledge such as the separation between mind and body, cognitive knowledge, and

embodied knowledge and inner and outer experience. In doing so, I explore the

relevance of embodied ways of knowing and the role of Somatic Movement Education

for those involved in music performance and learning contexts.

Specifically, as a challenge to mechanistic epistemology and the dualistic notions of

inner/outer structures of experience that underpin the so-called disembodied approach

to ways of musical knowing (Juntunen and Hyvönen 2004; Manifold 2008; Johnson

2007 & 2017), I consider alternative points of view that embrace both the Enactive

perspective of cognition (Varela et al., 1991; Johnson 2007, 2017) and principles of

Somatic Movement Education that aim to develop individuals’ conscious movement

awareness (Hanna 1985 and 2004; Eddy 2009). In particular, I look at aspects of

28

Somatic Movement Education approaches, including Laban Movement

Analysis/Bartenieff Fundamentals (Laban 1950/2011; Hackney 2002) and Skinner

Releasing Technique (SRT Skinner 1979). This consideration is coupled with

discussions on Mark Johnson’s Enactive-based notions of Image Schemata and ‘felt

sense’.4

To conclude the chapter, I present the idea of a Somatic–Enactive framework toward

developing a pedagogical method of embodiment for pre-professional music

performance students in higher education. And, how this framework could encourage

and support student musicians and their teachers to explore and apply a wider choice of

Somatic Movement experiences, which could facilitate ways of dealing with

performance tasks such as musical phrasing in embodied ways.

2.2 Embodiment

Embodiment has been understood in a number of different ways. Put simply, the

concept of embodiment opposes Rene Descartes’ conception that mind and thought

can exist as distinct from the body as we live our lives in the world (Descartes

1641/2017). Rather than identify being and understanding solely within the processes of

the mind, embodiment can be characterized by the belief that the mind and body are

inseparable.

The philosopher Mark Johnson (2007), known for his contribution to embodied

philosophy and cognitive science, suggests that there is no mind/body separation; a

person is not a mind and a body. He claims that what we call a person is a kind of bodily

organism that has a brain operating within its body, ‘a body that is continually interacting

with aspects of its environments and with others in an ever changing process of

experience’ (Johnson 2007: 20). Although Johnson’s views on embodiment give insight

into the interactive nature of mind, body and environment, he places the brain central to

being and understanding rather than the mind/body/brain as an integrated whole.

4 Here I refer to Johnson’s appropriation of Eugene Gendlin’s account of the ‘felt sense’ to ‘show that meanings

are working and developing for us even prior to our conscious awareness of them. Without this experiential

rootedness, meanings would be miracles born ex nihilo as disembodied cogitations’ (Johnson 2007: 26). For more

on this notion see Gendlin 2003: 32-34.

29

However, his notion that embodiment encapsulates self and self in-relation to the

environment and with others is important to my argument within this thesis. It suggests

that individuals can allow their experience of movement within an environment to

influence their ongoing, intimate connection and interaction of self and world. This

prompts the question, what is it that we experience through movement? Johnson

suggests that what we are always experiencing is the ‘quality of things, spaces and

forceful exertions’ (2007: 21). By this he refers to our experience of putting things into

and taking things out of containers as a way of learning about containment. He

suggests that we ‘feel various degrees of exertion and force’ (ibid.:) to enable us to

determine how much force we need to employ to move from one place to another and

for moving things of varying weights. Further, Johnson’s focus on the connection

between life and movement as one of the keys to understanding ‘how things and

experiences become meaningful to us’ suggests that movement is one of the conditions

for our sense of what our world is like and who we are. Similarly, Gendlin (1991) draws

our attention to thinking beyond the logical and operational dimension of knowledge, in

that there is also a directly felt, experiential facet a felt sense. Gendlin sees that modes

of thinking that use only forms, patterns and rules will miss large parts of embodied

situational experiences that make these forms meaningful to us in the first place

(Johnson 2007).

One of Gendlin’s favourite examples of the working of embodied meaning is his story of

a poet searching for the right words to finish a line (see Gendlin 1991: 38). This can also

be understood by considering the experience of a music performer coming up with new

ideas for interpreting a musical phrase; of trying them out by reflecting on how these

sounds feel in the present situation and then sometimes – and sometimes not - coming

across the sounds that seem to work and that can communicate the performers’ musical

intentions to the listener. This process implies as Johnson suggests, that various

possibilities for experience that cannot happen without our bodies, or without our

embodied interactions within an environment (Johnson 2007).

Because most of us are not always aware of our bodies or our embodied interactions

within an environment, we often overlook our direct experience of them. Both Johnson’s

30

and Gendlin’s views of the felt sense help to characterize the roots of our embodied

thinking and development of meaning and how this might be related to embodied

musical meaning. However, because their discussions focus on cognitive processes

and on how paying attention to how you feel can support and be part of your thoughts

(Johnson 2007), the idea of awareness of raw, direct felt experience of movement as

knowledge is vague. As a result, the knowledge/experience dualism can be seen to be

reinforced.

This leads me to the notion of embodied experience in learning and development, in

that increasing one’s awareness of the felt sense of movement is a markedly embodied

phenomenon. It is a feeling that is experienced through one’s entire being, felt in one’s

sense of self in a holistic way, in order for its influence to be realized. In this way, felt

sense of movement is important for our capacity to develop and communicate our

intentions in the world. Thus, it can be seen to be an important part of learning and

development, especially when considering embodied experience as an educational aim.

The work of the phenomenological philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1962/2002)

offers insight into the exploration of experience within learning and development. For

Merleau-Ponty the experience of ‘being’ and ‘doing’ goes beyond learning about and

becomes learning through. He suggests that knowledge is acquired via embodied

experience and notes that as humans we are always in constant contact with our

environment. As a result, experience is always in the process of becoming and so it is

through the body that we have access to the world (ibid.:). This view of embodiment

gives primacy to individual experience within learning and positions it as a powerful

concept in that, whatever situations we encounter as humans we experience existence

through our own bodies. In this way, all experiences become part of the way we come

to know, and new experiences contain the potential for development.

Merleau-Ponty’s view may be seen as similar to Dewey’s experiential learning theory

(Dewey 1938/2008) and Kolb’s interpretation of reflective thought and action within the

experiential learning process (Kolb 2014, Kolb and Kolb 2017). However, although

Dewey asserts that there is a connection between education and personal experience

he suggests that all human experience is social and involves communication and

31

interaction. Dewey explains that people live in a world surrounded by people and other

things that are results of previous experiences. It is these combined experiences that

construct knowledge (Dewey 1938/2008). In contrast to Merleau-Ponty’s view, Dewey

suggests that we experience living in the world as a social phenomenon rather than as

a purely individualistic experience. We develop knowledge based on socially

constructed experiences where learning is an ongoing process of interaction with the

environment and others rather than primarily through our own bodies in contact with the

environment. Seen as such, Merleau-Ponty’s view could be interpreted as dualistic in

that he implies that our bodies and the environment co-exist or go hand in hand rather

than being inseparable. On the other hand, Dewey’s view that learners do not simply

occupy an external and separate context in acquiring knowledge but that they are part

of the present situation and context in which they learn suggests a more embodied and

holistic perspective.5 This dynamic view of embodiment is particularly relevant in the

context of my thesis as it suggests that individuals’ perceptions of culture and

experience are not deterministic but rather open to change. This view also resonates

with the notion of the ecological body, which is based on the hypothesis that ‘such a

body perceives the moving world through movement and experiences itself as one part

of a changing situation’ (Reeve 2011: 50).

Dewey clearly advocates embodied experiential learning. However, he argues that not

all experiences are educative. His position was that ‘everything depends on the quality

of the experience that was had’ (1938/2008: 27). By ‘quality’ Dewey refers to how the

experience was connected to the world in which we live and how these experiences

5 As an aside, this embodied viewpoint is important, not only for the design, organization and

implementation of the empirical part of this research project, but also for my professional practice as a

dance and music educator. It is relevant to how I continue to develop my ideas regarding the application

of Somatic Movement Education to music performance learning and development situations; how I view

my role as a music and dance teacher to facilitate embodied experiences that engage and empower

learners; and how can I try to ensure that students’ experiences lead to the ability to transfer knowledge

gained through my application of Somatic Movement experiences to new situations in their music

performance learning and development processes.

32

lead to the ability to transfer knowledge to new situations. This point is particularly

relevant for this thesis, especially with regard to considering the connections

participants’ made between their experience of the Somatic Movement workshops and

their practice as student music performers. In particular, how those experiences led to

their ability to transfer embodied knowledge they had gained through the Somatic

Movement explorations to their playing or singing. Further, how the opportunities for

reflection through in-workshop dialogue and video-assisted recall allowed them to make

connections between what they experienced and the knowledge they drew from that

experience. Opportunities for reflection within the learning process were of major

importance to Dewey. Kolb’s well known four-stage Experiential Learning Theory (see

Kolb 2014) develops this idea and treats reflection as an integral part of the experiential

learning process. I mention Kolb’s notion of the reflective phase within the experiential

learning process here as it is important with regard to meaning-making and can be

mapped onto the meaning-making process of learning to phrase a piece of music. I

refer to meaning-making here as the process of how people construe, understand or

make sense of life events, relationships and the self (Kegan 1980: 373). In this sense,

the reflective stage can be extended to include opportunities to explore musical

meaning more deeply and, during the conceptualization and active experimental stages,

to work with this meaning, making links between musical intention, process and

outcome in a more embodied way.

In relation to movement, meaning is often attributed to the body through the

interpretations or assumptions of the mind, which is consistent with Merleau-Ponty’s

phenomenological approach (1962/2002). However, I would argue that the living body

has its own meaning which can explore and express ideas and come to know the world

through movement. It is this view that brings me to the Somatic perspective of

embodiment and the interactive relationship between inner and outer experience. In

Somatics the body becomes significant as it interacts with environmental factors and

other bodies. In particular, it explores how the body engages with its environment and

how from listening to the body we can respond to these sensations by consciously

attending to and altering movement habits and movement choices (Eddy 2009: 7). As a

way of understanding this concept, I found it helpful to consider the Somatic Movement

33

practice of Laban Movement Analysis/Bartenieff Fundamentals (LMA/BF)6. This practice

gave me the opportunity to understand how student musicians might be able to apply

Somatic Movement as an embodied way of connecting with their musical phrasing

intentions and transforming those intentions into sound at their instruments. A way of

connecting inner and outer experience within their surrounding environment.

To clarify, exploring and developing a Somatic Movement approach to music performing

learning contexts is not meant as a means of replacing other approaches. Rather, it is a

way of exploring the nature and application of an integrated Somatic-Enactive

understanding of embodied experience, which looks in the spaces between different

points of view and waits for ‘a gap into which something new can emerge’ (Tufnell and

Crickmay 2006: 1). The following section explores this idea further and expands the

discussion within the context of music performance learning and developmental

processes in relation to embodiment.

2.3 Embodied experience within music performance learning and

development processes

The enquiry into embodied experience in music performance learning contexts has

been joined by psychologists, musicologists, cognitive scientists, music and Somatic

practitioners and educators, who have enriched the field with a diverse range of

interdisciplinary research, theory and practice. The interest in this field has shown that

the body is present in all fundamental aspects of musical experience.7 While the

connection between music and movement is widely accepted, the meaning and the

nature of this relationship remains hotly debated in a broad range of directions. The

literature has been dominated by two points of view. These attempt to understand the

involvement of movement of the body in music performance in terms of either inner

experience or outer expression (Sloboda and Juslin 2010: 74).

6 LMA/BF is a framework for understanding, classifying and interpreting human movement. As a Somatic

practice it enables a student to become immersed in their embodied experience of themselves in action,

exploring a depth of self-knowledge with a sharper awareness through movement exploration.

7 Bresler 2004, 2010; Bowman 2002; Elliott and Silverman 2015; Godøy and Leman 2010; Broughton and

Davidson 2016; Clarke and Davidson 1998; Pierce 2007; Greenhead and Habron 2015; Greenhead,

Habron and Mathieu 2016.

34

The internal perspective investigates the ‘how’ and ‘what’ of the body in music

performance. That is, it aims to provide answers to questions such as how music

causes listeners to move their bodies (Godøy and Leman 2010), how performers’

movements can influence observers’ perceptions of the music being produced

(Broughton and Davidson 2016) and what type of information is conveyed in the

movements of musicians during performance (Davidson 1994, 2007).

The external perspective is mostly concerned with answering ‘where’ questions such as

where did the performer make a certain gesture in the music (the score or performance)

and where did performers communicate intention by use of physical gestures such as

eye contact, breath and other movement cues (King and Gritten 2011; Ginsborg and

King 2016). In other words, the external ‘where’ enquiry is mainly associated with the

movement of the body being located in the music itself, in the score and/or

performance. In contrast, the ‘how’ and ‘what’ generally seek to understand how

movements perceived as expressive can shape how observers/listeners respond to

music performance, how they might relate to the music being produced and how they

might enable musicians to accomplish their musical intentions (Broughton and Davidson

2016).

The juxtaposition of internal and external perspectives has resulted in several influential

frameworks. Davidson, Correia and Pitts (2001) proposed a social-psychological

framework for music performance and perception research. This framework aimed to

bring together the exploration of the interaction between individual performance body

style, musical expression and communication in order to further understand how a

coordinated and meaningful performance is created. For instance, Davidson (1994,

2007) showed that performances of the same piece of music with three different

expressive intentions (‘deadpan’: without expression, ‘projected’: with normal

expression and ‘exaggerated’: with exaggerated expression) could be clearly

differentiated from the visual perception of the performer’s body movements. Further, in

a study of a solo pianist (1994: 279–301) she explored in detail what type of information

is conveyed in the movements of a pianist during performance and how those

movements might guide the perceptions of an observer/listener. In this study a tracking

35

technique was used to quantify the movements in two dimensions up/down and

forward/backwards in relation to the keyboard and showed the expected relationship

between movement size and expression (the more intense the expressive intention the

larger the movement). Further, observer judgments explored the extent to which

different regions of the body were informative of the performance intention (deadpan,

projected or exaggerated) and findings suggested that the upper/torso and head region

was sufficient for an accurate perceptual judgement. In yet another study, Davidson,

Correia and Pitts (2001) explored whether movement information about the expressive

intentions of a pianist was available to observers in a continuous stream or if it was

limited to particular moments within a performance. While observers reported a cyclical

body sway as indicative of continuous expression, they also reported that some

moments were more obvious indicators of expression than others (such as a cadence

point).

In Davidson’s work, systematic observations indicated that the pianists’ cyclical

movements emanated from the hip region. Given the usual sitting position for pianists, it

was suggested that the hips represent the fulcrum of gravity and therefore provide the

pivotal point for all upper torso movements. Further, that this ‘centre of gravity’ seemed

to be the general location for the generation of physical expression.8 In a more recent

study that observed the use of expressive bodily movement in marimba players

(Davidson and Broughton 2016), expressive movement observations were not

consistently related to markings in the score such as accents or cadence points. One

explanation of this might relate to Godoy’s notion of ‘goal points’ (Godøy 2010: 103–

125; 2011: 67–82). The ‘chunking by goal points’ hypothesis suggests that significant

movements made during performance are not necessarily restricted to structural

boundaries but rather relate to the central goal point of the initiated action. In Davidson

and Broughton’s study these significant movements appear in moments of musical

phrasing which although they can delineate the structure of the music can also

transcend structural boundaries and relate to musical intention.

8 The ‘centre of gravity’ or ‘centre of moment’ in this context refers to a point within our bodies which acts

as a reference around which all the movements of the body are organized (Cutting, Proffitt and Kozlowski

1978: 357–72).

36

Although the above studies give some insights into the types of movements being used

it would be misleading to imply that movement in performance can be accounted for

merely in terms of the primary processes of physiology, sensorimotor coordination and

cognitive mechanisms. In respect to this, Davidson goes on to explain the idea that

there is also a social component to the way in which we use and present bodily

movement in music performance mimetically, as a way of communicating with co-

performers and observers/listeners (Clarke and Davidson 1998). In support of this

hypothesis, Johnson (2007: 37) discusses how learnt mimetic movements (movements

acquired through imitation) can furnish human communication. He suggests that these

movements can have an effect on establishing connections to other people. For

example, the way a baby can establish communicative contact with its caregivers using

vocal sounds, facial and body movements that give the carer information that can help

them understand the baby’s needs, thoughts and feelings. As such, this is a primordial

form of human agreement, a form of shared meaning and communicative intention.

Clearly, mimetic movements may contribute significantly to the production and

perception of a musical performance. It may be that mimetic movements are used at

certain points during the performance to enhance the specific musical intentions at

certain points. However, this would suggest that the movements need to be consistent

with the intentions of the performer otherwise the physical tension and

miscommunication created by inauthentic movements (movements that are not ‘found’

in the body but are put on like a dress or a coat; Pallaro 2006) may inhibit technical

fluency, and upset the listeners with incongruity between the movement used and the

musical intention. The mimetic hypothesis also suggests that we are all born with a

capacity to unify the visual and proprioceptive information into one common framework.

Although research on the mirror-neuron system is ongoing and is providing insights into

the brain mechanisms of imitative learning, Maxine Sheets-Johnstone (2009) points out

that it fails to take into account the differences between proprioception (a sense of

movement and position that includes tactility and gravitational orientation through

vestibular sensory organs) and kinaesthesia (an awareness of movement and felt

kinetic flow: the motion of bodies and forces associated with their movement) as part of

37

its framework.9 As such, they omit the very stuff of life and the qualitative nature of that

stuff. They omit animation. (See Sheets-Johnson 2009 for a closer examination of

kinaesthesia as an awareness of a qualitatively felt kinetic flow).

Similarly, Cox (2016) offers additional kinds of evidence that specify more closely how

musical concepts are tied to embodied experience. His recent work on motor imagery,

particularly that involving mirror neurons, indicates that observed movements are

perceived and conceptualized in terms of the observer’s own experience of making the

kinds of movements observed; whether watching sports, dance or musical performance

we can imitate who we are observing. In relation to listening to music, this could mean

that we understand the gestures of performers in part through imitative participation,

whether the performers are live, recorded or recalled (Cox 2016). Cox also includes the

Somatic experience and suggests that if we feel how different kinds of music motivate

different kinds of imitative participation, the connection between embodied experience

and musical concepts can become enmeshed.

Clearly, the inner and outer perspectives discussed above are not always separated

and sometimes inform each other in various ways to develop more refined approaches.

And although, I do not delve more deeply into the neuroscientific debates in this thesis,

these approaches have provided important insights across a range of music domains.10

However, there are reasons to question whether relying on the inner/outer dichotomy

represents the best way to shed new light on music performance and embodied musical

experience. Indeed, many of its underlying assumptions are challenged by new

research that explores music performance learning as an embodied phenomenon (van

der Schyff 2017, Elliot and Silverman 2015). Along these lines, researchers have drawn

on both the so-called Enactive approach to cognition (Varela et al. 1991) and the

Somatic approach to education (Hanna 1985, 2004) to investigate the music learning

9 For a criticism of this view see Sheets-Johnstone (2009: 217–234) and Stawarska (2009).

10 Such as music psychology (Davidson 2001, Gritten and King 2011), music and philosophy (Elliot 1995;

Elliot and Silverman 2015; Clarke and Clarke 2011; Clarke, Dibben and Pitts 2009), musicology (Godøy

2003, 2010, 2011), music performance (Rink 2004; Doğantan-Dack 2011, 2012) and music performance

learning and development (Parncutt and Troup 2002; Bresler 2004, Williamon 2004).

38

experience in more holistic ways.11 By holistic I refer to an experiential learning

approach that recognizes the role of feelings and other ways of knowing such as

intuition and bodily knowledge and the role of the relationships with others in the

learning process (Taylor 2017: 17–29).

While there are various views on what constitutes embodied musical experience within

the fields of Somatics and Enactivism, to clarify at this stage, my perspective is more in

line with sensorimotor Enactivism. This view originates in the work of O’Reagan and

Noë (2001) and has been developed by Johnson (2007, 2017), Barandiaran (2017),

Degenaar and O’Reagan (2017) and others. My view is also integrated with the

Somatics proposal that originates in the work of Hanna (1985, 1993, 2004), Laban

(1950/2011), Bartenieff (Bartenieff and Lewis 1980; Hackney 2002) and Skinner

(Skinner et al. 1979) and others. My goal is not to contrast a Somatic-Enactive

framework with other similar accounts such as the Enactive ‘biological’ proposal (Varela

et al. 1991) or the Somatic ‘mindfulness’ orientation (Langer 1989). Rather, I adopt

conceptual and practical tools and models that are shared among these perspectives in

an attempt to extend the Enactive approach developed in cognitive science and develop

a methodological framework that can orientate points of views in the context of

embodied musical experience and musical performance learning contexts. From this

perspective, musical performance learning phenomena sit uncomfortably within pre-

given inner–outer structures and are not perhaps best understood by observing

sequential causes and effects.

In the next section, I consider these issues in more detail exploring how such insights

into an integrated approach can deepen our understanding of embodied experience in

music performance learning and development and can offer possibilities for developing

a methodological framework that supports the application of Somatic and Enactive

principles and perspectives to music performance learning and development contexts.

11 For Somatic approaches to music education see van der Merwe (2014); Greenhead and Habron (2015);

Paparo (2015); Greenhead (2016); Franklin (2013). For Enactive approaches see Johnson (2007) and

(2017); Cox (2016); van der Schyff (2017).

39

2.4 Fundamental Somatic principles and Enactive perspectives

A Somatic perspective sees the subjective experience of living as both a way of looking

at oneself from the inside out, by which one becomes aware of feelings, sensations and

intentions, and a way of looking objectively from the outside in (Emslie 2017: 1). Within

the world of Somatics there are a number of different branches.12 However, it is worth

noting at this point that, on the whole, this thesis largely refers to the development and

interplay of Somatic Movement Education principles and Enactive perspectives on

cognition and its relationship to music performance learning and development.

To clarify, Enactivist approaches are associated with the embodied perspective included

in Somatics. Yet there are important differences. Specific differences about how

essential the body is for understanding cognition and creating meaning and enjoyment

of life. Enactivists argue against in-the-head structures, as well as against

computational theorists who discount any special role of the living body on cognition

(Thompson and Stapleton 2009). Instead they consider cognitive processes as

originating in embodied perceptually guided action (van der Schyff ibid.). The Enactive

approach views cognition as an ‘activity’ made up of individuals’ circular interactions

occurring between the mind, body and the environment, whereas Somatic Movement

practitioners and theorists suggest the interaction is more like a constant interplay of

self-regulated movement experience (Hackney 2002: 34) that may lead to a more

embodied life. Another related difference is the notion of sensorimotor awareness. Both

Enactivism and Somatics acknowledge the role of this process in enhancing human

action and body-mind integration. However, Enactivists see this as working in

continuous sensorimotor loops, which enact or bring forth an individuals’ way of making

sense of something. By contrast, the Somatic approach suggests that the continuous

flow of sensorimotor awareness allows individuals to let things happen through a focus

on human movement both as an objective physical process and as a subjective process

of lived consciousness (International Somatic Movement Education and Therapy

12 See Eddy 2009 for a brief historical overview of somatic practices and dance; historical developments

of the field of somatic education and its relationship to dance.

40

ISMETA 2018).13 This integrated perspective is relevant to my thesis as it begins to

expand both Enactivist and Somatic leanings that not only express holistic perspectives,

but also embrace the centrality of conscious movement in the interconnected

relationships within self, and between self, others and the environment. As such, this

alignment of the two perspectives begins to crystalize how a Somatic-Enactive

framework could work in practice and be applied to support music performance students

and their teachers to transform learning experiences through embodied movement

strategies.

At this point, it is important to clarify basic principles of Somatic Movement education

as this will give the reader further insight into Somatic Movement practice and how it

relates to my professional practice and the empirical work in this thesis. This will help to

unpack a clearer rationale towards my use of Laban Movement Analysis/Bartenieff

Fundamentals (LMA/BF) and Skinner Releasing Technique (SRT) in relation to the

potentialities of Somatic and Enactivist frameworks and Somatic Movement education.

Somatic Movement education, largely developed by dance and movement practitioners,

involves listening to the body and being aware of sensations by consciously attending to

movement habits and to the re-patterning of new movement choices. Through

conscious movement explorations, it aims to facilitate improved vitality and

performance, expanded creative expression and integrated personal transformation in

students’ daily lives.14

Somatic Movement education encompasses various distinct disciplines, each with its

own educational emphasis, principles, methods and techniques. These include

movement explorations that involve touch, imagery, experiential anatomy, tuning in to

one’s feelings as one moves, poetry, and verbal exchange and cues. These methods

are used to help students:

13 For further details of somatic movement education practices see International Somatic Movement

Education and Therapy Association website, ismeta.org

14 For further details on the original scope of practice for Somatic Movement educators see the

International Somatic Movement Education and Therapy Association website, ismeta.org.

41

Focus on the body both as an objective physical process and as a subjective

process of lived consciousness

Refine perceptual, kinaesthetic, proprioceptive and interoceptive15 sensitivity that

supports homeostasis,16 co-regulation17 and neuroplasticity18

Recognize habitual patterns of perceptual, postural and movement interaction

with the environment

Improve coordination that supports structural, functional and expressive

integration

Experience an embodied sense of vitality and create both meaning for and

enjoyment of life (ISMETA Scope of Practice 2018, website ismeta.org).

Somatic Movement education can be applied to both everyday activities and specialized

ones such as dance and music performance. This aspect of Somatic Movement

education is particularly relevant to this thesis. A pianist, for example, can learn how to

change the habitual way she uses her body and relates to herself and her world as she

practices moving in new ways at the piano keyboard. In turn, this may allow greater

ease and comfort during a long rehearsal or practice session or ease tension in the

hands, neck, shoulders, which may allow greater freedom in communicating musical

ideas more clearly. In this way, the pianist has the opportunity to be actively involved in

noticing her own movement patterns and can participate fully and be in charge of her

own change (Hackney 2002: 24). The musical learning experience thus emerges from

the body as an integration of an objective physical process and as a subjective process

of lived consciousness (a recognition of habitual patterns of perceptual and postural

movement in interaction with the environment).

15 Sensing the internal state/landscape of the body; Khalsa and Lapidus (2016).

16 A state of steady internal conditions maintained by living things; Martin (2008: 315–316).

17 A term used in psychology to refer to a ‘continuous unfolding of individual action that is susceptible to

being continuously modified by the continuously changing actions of the partner’ – as in the dynamic

relationship between student and teacher for example; Butler and Randall (2013: 202–210).

18 The ability of the brain to change throughout an individual’s life; Samita, Kuruvilla and Ling (2018).

42

It is important to note, that the development of Somatic Movement theories and

practices has a strong historical connection with the birth of contemporary dance at the

beginning of the twentieth century.19 This is important because, among these, Emile

Jacques-Dalcroze (1865–1950), primarily a musician, and Rudolf Laban (1879–1958)

helped to lay the foundations for Somatic Movement as a non-dualistic way of knowing

and being a musician and a dancer in the world. Further, as Mangione suggests, both

Somatic Movement and contemporary dance probably share many of the same origins,

such as a response to the highly stylized dance form of ballet at the time and a desire to

explore new more earthy form of movement and dance through body-based forms that

value the whole human being (Mangione 1993: 27). In the same way, Jacques-Dalcroze

responded to the highly traditional approach to music performance education at the

conservatoire where he taught in Geneva by introducing movement into his classes

(Jacques-Dalcroze 1921/1988). Laban and later Bartenieff, and Jacques-Dalcroze have

been influential in my professional development and underpin my interest in the

contemporary application of Somatic Movement approaches to music performance

learning and teaching.20 In particular, Laban’s system for analysing movement (LMA)

(see Laban 1950/2011), later expanded by Irmgard Bartenieff and others inspired me to

explore the application of Somatic Movement techniques to piano teaching and to

search for a framework for analysing and understanding the relationship between music

performance and movement. These included Movement Pattern Analysis (Lamb and

Watson 1979; Lamb 2012; Moore 2005), Action Profiling and Kestenberg Movement

Profile (Kestenberg-Amighi, Loman and Lewis and Sossin 1999). I will return to a

discussion of these methods of movement analysis in Chapter 3. Here, I briefly discuss

LMA in more detail and introduce one of the Somatic innovators who developed this

area of study, Irmgard Bartenieff (1900–1981).

Bartenieff studied movement and dance with Laban and later trained to become a

physical therapist. She helped to create new fields including dance therapy and her own

19 See Mangione (1993) for an overview of the origins and evolution of Somatics.

20 See Wahl (2019) for overview of contemporary applications of Laban Movement Analysis and

Bartenieff Fundamentals.

43

Somatic system called Bartenieff Fundamentals (BF).21 In brief, Bartenieff emphasized

the importance of internal body connectivity in making movement come alive both within

the individual and out in the world. She broadened the field of LMA to include the

exploration of all the possibilities of interconnection: self to self, self together and self to

environment (Hackney: 2002). Bartenieff recognized that our bodies contain knowledge

which may not be accessible from the predominant view of linear inquiry. Further, she

noticed that moving and awareness of movement can bring access to bodily knowledge

that may allow us to make connections between thoughts and explore the relationship

between ideas (Hackney 2002: 3). Based on five categories of movement: Body, Effort,

Shape, Space and Phrasing LMA/BF offers a framework for understanding movement

as it influences our experiences of ourselves and others. Briefly, Body refers to the

physical body – the tangible, graspable body you live in; Effort refers to the dynamic

qualities present in movement; Shape refers to the form and forming processes of the

body, the edges and curves of the body and how they change; Space refers to how the

body moves through the space around it in meaningful patterns and Phrasing relates to

the individual uniqueness in movement and the patterns and relationships in movement

as they unfold over time.22 As such, it offers an approach to observing, teaching,

learning and analysing human movement based on patterning connections in the body

within a given environment or space. The purpose of such training is to allow an

individual student to make changes in how they move in their lives and in their

specialized practises so as to be more effective, easeful and whole (Wahl 2019). The

main goal is ‘to facilitate a lively interplay of inner connectivity with outer expressivity to

enrich life’ (Hackney 2002: 34) and to direct awareness to sensing what one is feeling in

the context of what is going on around one. The on inner/outer awareness is relevant to

this thesis in that it is important that a music performer can attend to the interplay of

inner sensations and the external environment. A pianist, for example, needs to be able

to sense both her movement and the materiality of the piano itself. The resistance and

vibrations and the choreography necessary to negotiate the geography of the

21 See Bartenieff and Lewis (1980) and Hackney (2002) for further details of Bartenieff Fundamentals.

22 For further details of the five categories see Wahl (2019), Hackney (2002) and Laban (1950/2011). For

more specific details of ‘Effort’ see Laban and Lawrence (1947).

44

instrument. In this way, she can direct attention away from only thinking in-the-head and

have a lively sense of interplay in sensing how she relates to the instrument and how it

is working in the space in which she is playing. In a practice session, for example, she

may be focusing on her internal awareness to the exclusion of what is going on around.

If she listened to herself with an external awareness she might notice that the notes she

is playing are correct but that an intended crescendo does not sound like she wants it

to. It is clear that the interaction between internal and external awareness is important in

developing the skills that enable student musicians to fulfil their musical intentions. But,

how can we observe this interaction?

LMA/BF offered me a way of thinking about how I could research this interaction by

observing, analysing and interpreting participants’ music performance students’

movement during Somatic Movement workshops. This led me to consider using the

Laban-inspired movement analysis method of Kestenberg Movement Profiling

(Kestenberg-Amighi, Loman, Lewis and Sossin 1999) which I discuss in Chapter 3, In

addition, I drew on Bartenieff-based movement exercises/explorations in the workshops

and Bartenieff’s ideas about movement phrasing to design some of the workshop

content. This informed my thinking about the notion of applying her kinaesthetic model

of movement phrasing to musical phrasing. Nevertheless, it is to another Somatic

Movement practitioner, Joan Skinner and Skinner Releasing Technique (SRT) that I

turn as a means of further investigation into how Somatic Movement practice can be

applied to music performance learning and teaching in higher education. The reason for

this choice lies in Skinner’s work with imagination, visualization, kinaesthesia,

improvisation and sensory imagery. In particular, it was her work with sensory imagery

as an agent for change that drew me to look more closely at her attempts to inspire the

imagination and her aim to integrate technique with expressive processes. The next

section gives a brief outline of her work and the technique she developed: Skinner

Releasing Technique (SRT) and discusses the wider implications for the application of

SRT in music performance learning contexts.

45

2.4.1 Skinner Releasing Technique (SRT)

In the early 1960s Joan Skinner – American choreographer, dance improvisation

innovator and former dancer with Merce Cunningham and Martha Graham companies –

developed Skinner Releasing Technique (SRT). Influenced by LMA, the Alexander

Technique and the work of Mabel Todd, SRT, among other things, uses sensory image-

guided work to ease tension and promote an effortless kind of moving, integrated with

alignment of the whole body (Skinner et al. 1979).23

The type of sensory imagery used by SRT falls into two categories: specific and totality.

Specific sensory imagery is concerned with segmented movement patterns, which deal

with movements of separate parts of the body such as bending the knee, raising the

arm, lifting the hip or turning the head. Totality sensory imagery cultivates an overall

state in which full body integration and multi-dimensional awareness is realized, as in a

high dive or a pirouette (Bartlett 2007). An example of a specific sensory image is that

of the strings attached to a marionette’s knee being pulled to lift the leg; a comparable

totality image is the image of all the strings being manipulated to make the marionette

dance around the stage. In this case, the movements of the whole body merge and a

whole movement pattern emerges. Skinner and her colleagues (Skinner et al. 1979)

make it clear that at times the specific image can be integrated within the totality image

and that the two forms of sensory imaging can be used flexibly. They also points out

that the feelings and movements evoked by the sensory images are not seen as

dramatic interpretations of the sensory images. Rather, they are experienced more as

an immersion or complete identification with sensory imagery (Agis and Moran 2002).

This total concentration can turn basic sensory images into powerful tools, transcending

the specificity of the idea of a sensory image as a ‘mental image’, ‘visualization’, or ‘in-

the-head picture’ to a level of something more general multi-dimensional and multi-

sensory. 24

23 See Appendix O for an overview of SRT principles.

24 I use multi-sensory imagery here to refer to the performer’s use of movements which connect to their

sense of sight, touch, taste, smell, temperature, movement and feeling.

46

Skinner and her colleagues (Skinner et al. 1979) point out that, in working with the idea

of totality imagery, a certain loss of positioning in space can be experienced. This loss

of orientation can give the opportunity for a fresh, unconditional response that allows

new movement patterns to emerge. In addition, contrary to many dance techniques,

SRT puts forward the idea that there is no one centre of balance. Skinner writes:

balancing on two feet becomes a multi-directional, multi-dimensional experience in space. There is not, as found in established methods, a singular reference point for balancing, such as a set of muscles, a particular centre of the body, or a concept of upness and downness’. (Skinner et al. 1979: 3)

This notion suggests that the reference point for balancing is not fixed and is constantly

changing. Instead of moving with an underlying conception that force is needed to defy

gravity, inertia and friction, the dancer operates with the conception that other forces

support or propel them through movement. In other words, letting go of fixed points of

muscular tension can enable the dancer to move effortlessly to accomplish her/his

performance intentions (Skura 1990: 11–18). An example of this sense of effortlessness

in moving is often shown by professional goalkeepers as they dive to save a goal, by

dancers as they execute multiple pirouettes or massive leaps, and by pianists as they

play challenging high-speed virtuoso cadenzas.

Skinner et al. claim that when performers understand the ‘releasing’ principles of letting

go unnecessary muscular tension, they can unleash greater power, speed and intensity

of movement with the appearance of less overt effort than would be expected. They can

also move suddenly with accuracy and precision, and with no apparent preparation, just

as a snake strikes without warning or as a pianist pounces on a sforzando without

outward signs of anticipation or tension. At the same time, subtle nuances can be

expressed through movement with greater clarity. The concept of ‘releasing’ entails

more than letting go of fixed points of muscular tension. It also implies a simultaneous

allowing of new movement patterns to emerge. Skinner and her colleagues claim:

one releases immediate fixed states of being to become available to the

47

aligning process. In turn, the aligning process releases psychophysical energy. The release of tension of distorted alignment is, in effect, a release of perceptions, of preconceived ideas, of physical habits which are manifested in alignment. In order to facilitate the aligning process, one releases the tyranny of conscious control and of preconceived ideas to experience the natural laws of movement as they apply to the human organism. (Skinner et al. 1979: 4)

The premise that mind and body are somehow separate is discarded in SRT. Instead

the following metaphor is used to define the human organism:

The human organism is seen not as a mind-body duality, but as a dynamic network of energies. The network is totally unified, yet within it are complex, diverse autonomous patterns and forms of energy. Although there are reverberations within the network of energies, there is no linear pattern of cause and effect (ibid.: 5).

In addition to letting go of preconceived ideas, and physical habits that distort alignment

and to the exploration of new patterns, it would seem that unifying mind and body in the

releasing process can give students the opportunity to free their imagination. In this

way, students are not simply required to absorb the rote sensory images they are given

in class or in lessons – they are encouraged to experience sensory images that come to

them freely. This can mean that students can enjoy a considerable degree of autonomy

which, is to a certain extent free from external influence. Independence is thus enabled

in the learning process as a means of developing self-direction.

While dance training has been a focal point in the development of SRT, it is clear that its

use of sensory imagery has much broader implications in other performance learning

situations such as sport, athletics, acting and music performance. The method indicates

that not only the situation but also the intention dictates the purpose of sensory imagery

used and, that this, in turn, can effect the outcome. For example, in practising the piano

where learning to interpret a new piece is the focus, pianists could use sensory imagery

to instil an intention before they even begin to play a note or clap a rhythm. For

instance, during a practice session a pianist might interpret the shape of an unfamiliar

phrase by moving their arms in the air silently as they silently hear the contour of a

48

melody, or absorb the moments of tension and release by focusing on their breathing

patterns while experiencing a sensory image of the expansion and contraction of the

harmonic structure (Klickstein 2009). If sensory imagery is important in helping music

performers to fulfil their musical intentions how can it be used? How can it enable

performer to move with accuracy and precision to accomplish their interpretation of the

music at hand? And, how do music performance educators utilise this tool? The next

section considers these questions with a particular focus on playing the piano.

2.4.2 Sensory imagery and practising the piano

Imagine the movements necessary to play a glissando on the piano. Not only are the

fingers involved but also the whole self, and it is through this awareness of the

sensation of the movement of the whole self that other possibilities may emerge. If a

pianist were to practise improving her glissandi technique in a piece of music such as

Perpetuum Mobile (1975/1979) by the Hungarian composer, pianist and educator

György Kurtág (b. 1926) in which the only compositional materials used are glissandi,

she may try to use a clear sensory image of moving as a whole as she listens intently to

her movements and the sounds they are creating. In addition, she may have a specific

kinaesthetic image (a sense of movement) of her hand as very elastic so that her hand

movements are carefully formed and are similar to the glissando lines. Further, she may

have an aural image of the sound of the glissando and a tactile image of the relationship

between the space created between the back of her hand and the piano to let a change

in the fluidity of the sound happen. Additionally, she may use kinaesthetic imagery in an

imaginary way, relating to nature – being thrown about by crashing waves or being

swept up by the rushing of the wind in the trees ranging from a small breeze to a storm.

Here, multi-sensory imagery is allowing her to tune into her whole self, to monitor how

her changes are going. In this way, continuous interplay of movement and thinking

processes, which allows the whole self to be involved in changing or amending her

movement patterns at the piano during her individual practice sessions so that she can

play the glissandi the way she intended to through sensory imagery.

Being able to play and reproduce the sound you want as a performer is very important

and very often student pianists, spend many hours practising alone. Although individual

49

piano practice is often essential, practising can mean many things. It can consist of a

variety of different but related activities including memorization, the development of

technical security and the devising of interpretation (Reid 2002: 12) The methods that

music students can use to explore and implement their ideas in these activities can also

be varied. Peter Hill, the British pianist and musicologist, suggests that when beginning

to learn a new piece, one way is ‘to work intensely at the score, hearing it in-the-head

away from the instrument’ (Hill 2002: 133). Although this is one way to approach

learning a new piece that allows for a certain amount of freedom from addressing

technical issues early on in the learning process, it seems to neglect the importance of

the sensation of playing the notes on the piano and getting a sense of what is going on

in the whole body with regards to the big picture of the piece. It also, suggests that a

pianist should make pre-fixed decisions ‘in-the-head’ about how musical issues may be

tackled, which would seem to limit the agency of the performer to change things as they

go along. However, Hill does mention that before adjusting the weight of the fingers on

the piano keyboard, to correct the unevenness of a gradual crescendo, for example,

students need to be certain that they can feel, hear or sing the passage as they wish it

to sound. This implies that a use of sensory imagery is helpful to achieve these things.

Further, and relevant to this thesis, he suggests that security in accomplishing musical

intentions lies in the body. However, his approach seems to indicate a focus on

overcoming faults, fixing things, in the student’s playing rather than exploring individual

movement possibilities, sensory imagery and the student’s choices about their own

musical intentions and how their ideas about how they might achieve these intentions in

the music they play.

Alan Fraser, a noted pianist and pedagogue, addresses this issue in his writings on

piano technique (Fraser 2011). His piano teaching technique is the result of much

research into earlier piano schools and methods, and has resulted in a deeper

understanding of the complex physical, cognitive and emotional processes of artful

playing. His underlying theme is an analysis of the innate structure and function of the

human hand, which helps pianists replace tension or over-relaxation with effective hand

activation or choreography. He suggests that more important than the hand’s shape or

50

position is how it moves. Using his knowledge and experience as a practitioner of the

Feldenkrais method, which focuses on learning and movement awareness, he aims to

bring about improved movement and enhanced functioning of the hands at the piano

through Somatic education exercises that use sensory imagery.

In his book, ‘Play Piano with Your Whole Self’ (2019) Fraser uses sensory imagery to

explore the delicate incisive touch of harpsichord technique. These exercises help piano

students to use the sensory image of ‘getting inside’ the piano key instead of impinging

upon it – leading to a power more subtle and sophisticated than habitual muscular piano

power. Fraser’s technique provides valuable advice to complement various established

piano teaching philosophies. Among these is his use of many sensory imagery

techniques in his lessons. Ones that he that he considers to be the most important to

pianists are: singing the music and sensing your own voice, and then letting the fingers

begin to find that song on the piano; trying to focus on the task of making music rather

than on the task of reading the score; having your hands learn to stand, walk, run and

jump well on the keyboard, then giving them musical tasks that give them a reason for

doing these things. Fraser’s Somatic approach to piano teaching and learning resonates

with my own and as such is relevant to this thesis in supporting the application of

Somatic Movement exploration to piano performance learning and development

contexts. In particular, in the importance of understanding the hands’ structure and

function; and finding out how the whole body participates in supporting the hand in

working well. Allowing the pianist to be in contact with her essential artistic self by

improving her embodied relationship with her instrument (Fraser 2011; 2019).

Clearly, this is an important consideration in developing and incorporating Somatic

approaches that focus on sensory imagery to piano playing. It focuses the discussion on

the significance of a whole body approach and what that can bring to the piano

performing learning context. Experiencing movement in this way may allow a pianist to

identify points of unhelpful tension in her body, figure out what is causing it and work

through the problems herself, without her teacher. It may allow her to understand her

musical intentions more fully by embodying her interpretation of a phrase. It may

51

encourage her to be more autonomous in making decisions about how she wants to

play a particular passage and reflect on the outcome, asking herself questions such as:

Does it sound right? Does it feel right? Does it look right? Does the choreography of my

hands as part of my whole body seem to match the requirements of the passage and

my intentions? Is there evidence of tension or discomfort? Am I moving musically when

I play the piano? Helping students be more self-directed and to engage more

confidently in self-discovery and playful experimentation. Other Somatic Movement

approaches to piano teaching and learning may provide additional support. These

include Alexandra Pierce’s Embodied Interpretation and Dalcroze Eurhythmics.

Alexandra Pierce’s Embodied Interpretation (2007) involves learning rhythm by feeling

the pulse of the music through pendular swinging movements of the arms away from

the piano. The point of this type of exercise is to encourage students to sense the full

motion required to produce the drop point of the beat on the piano keyboard and then

re-experience this motion at the instrument. In another example, she asks students to

use their hand to trace the shape of a legato line and to pay attention to the direction of

the melody and the intensity of the sound in relationship to the surrounding harmonies

and other textures.

Likewise, as mentioned earlier, in the Dalcroze approach all elements of music and

performance are experienced through Somatic Movement games and exercises.

However, one aspect that differentiates a Dalcroze session is that they are almost

always combined with the use of props. For example, balls of various sizes and weight

are often used to explore the steady beat – bouncing the ball on the floor on the beat,

throwing and catching the ball on different beat to experience metrical displacement.

Other props such as Thera Bands of various sizes and resistance are often used to

experience the feeling of tension and release in a musical phrase. Not all Dalcroze

teachers use props, but many Dalcroze practitioners have adopted this technique and

use balls, scarves, feathers, sticks and Thera Bands to explore a Somatic Movement

approach to musical performance learning contexts. This gives them ways to invite

students to experience a connection with an inner/outer awareness of their movement

52

by interacting with the surrounding space as a way of enriching their sensory

experience. This prompts the question, what is the relevance of Somatic pedagogy for

musicians? And, how can Somatic education techniques address their needs? The next

section returns to Somatic Education theory and research to address these questions

and further the discussion.

2.5 Relevance of Somatic pedagogy for music students

Somatic pedagogy is a framework that is designed to facilitate students’ development of

self-reflection and change. It can offer music students the opportunity to focus on their

movement needs, which can encourage accurate sensory-motor pathways for

performing with integrity. In addition, the integration of kinaesthesia into sensory

awareness and whole body awareness can provide them with the skills for embodied

performance. Quality of movement is essential for musicians because it is the basis of

musical communication. Also important, is understanding the connection between inner

perceptions and experiences of movement and outer reflection because this allows

fulfilment of musical intentions with ease, agency and satisfaction during performance.

This section presents a discussion about the importance of Somatic education for

student musicians at every stage of their development including mindbody awareness,

imagination, social-integration, confidence and performer agency.

Somatic education techniques designed for musicians such as the ones mentioned I in

the previous chapter, are often new to music students who have enrolled on vocational

or degree courses in music performance. Established methods of teaching and learning

music performance – especially regarding improving student’s communication of

musical intentions in performance, focus on outside/ in strategies. These include

teacher’s enquiry, observation, feedback, discussion, explanation of expressive devices,

gestures and movements, singing, imagery (imagining a story or evoking pictures in-

the-head), modelling and visualization (Meissner 2016: 118). Indeed, it seems from the

literature that expression of students’ own musical intentions are rarely explored through

inner/outer modes such as helping students to become aware of inner sensations and

how these can assist with learning and improvement unique to the individual

53

musicians.25 Very often, even though the teacher may use enquiry and discussion, it is

made clear that the student is expected to make the music sound the way the teacher

intended it (Meissner 2016: 131).

Other studies point out that fulfilling musical intention is often taught through functional

technique and what has been written on the score by the composer. This could include

using arm weight in piano playing to accomplish a certain forcefulness in the sound

produced or finger staccato to produce a harsh ping without connecting to the inner

experience of doing these movements - the feeling of how the movements are

achieved, where they are initiated from and how they can be controlled to fulfil the

desired sounds at the piano (Rostwall and West 2003; Hallam 2010). This pedagogical

approach carries the expectation that students will decode information read in the score

and received from their teachers rather than be encouraged to use their own ideas and

imagination to make informed decisions about how to use embodied performance skills

to express their own interpretation of the music. This suggests the use of the computer

input/output model of learning discussed earlier in the thesis. This would indicate that a

student can inadvertently be led into being a representational body relying on outer

observations and guidance where the teacher and sometimes the mirror, especially in

singing, can determine success and progress.

The assumption that the exploration, implementation and communication of musical

intentions are not explicitly influenced by the music student or seen as embodied

experiences, and thus not individually relevant, has been questioned by research that

stresses the deep significance of learning through sensory awareness for self-listening

and self-regulating. In developing an openness to go beyond simply knowing and

accepting how to do something we have learnt, musicians must be allowed the

opportunity to develop a sense of agency. This can prepare them to meet new

challenges and deal with a rapidly changing professional music landscape. In the

context of learning musical performance, this can mean encouraging students to

explore, implement and communicate their own interpretations of the score, to make

25 See Greenhead 2016; Greenhead and Habron 2015; Juslin, Friberg, Schoonderwald and Karlsson

2004; Karlsson and Juslin 2008, Laukka 2004; Woodard 2009; Woody 2004.

54

conscious choices to do it their way and to have freedom to change their decisions and

the skills to enact those decisions, rather than to be restricted to finding a single

reproduction of what the teacher may want it to sound like what the student performer

thinks the composer wants/wanted it to sound like or, indeed, to sound like the

recreation of a previous interpretation by an admired professional musician from a

recording.

It is increasingly acknowledged by the research community that Somatic pedagogical

approaches allow musicians to learn with/through/from the body and make practical

applications that can benefit their playing and singing.26

Research in this field has tended to focus on health and well-being and the perceived

benefit of Somatic learning on reducing performance anxiety and relief from pain and

repetitive strain injuries. Of particular significance has been the effects of Alexander

Technique (AT) sessions. One mixed-methods study investigated the effects of fifteen

AT sessions on pre-professional musicians in low and high stress performance

situations (Valentine et al. 1995). The study reported that the AT group displayed

improvements relative to the control group in self-rated anxiety and positive attitude to

performance. Further, interviews with the AT group also found that participants had

increased awareness of unnecessary tension and improved their ability to relax.

However, it was concluded that fifteen AT sessions were insufficient to enhance

participants’ ability to deal with performance anxiety. Although this study does not go

into detail about other benefits participants experienced from doing the AT sessions it

does highlight the characteristics of Somatic approaches to learning associated with

slowing down and the undoing of unhelpful movement patterns/habits, learning new

ones and attending to perceptual and sensory processes. In turn, this offers some

explanation as to the often controversial opinions about the validity amongst students

and educators about the relevance of Somatic pedagogy for music performance

26 For the specific approaches that are the most popular among researchers in this field see Valentine et

al. (1995); Caldwell (1994) also see Klein, Bayard and Wolf (2014) for a review of controlled trials of the

Alexander Technique and musicians; the Feldenkrais Method (Paparo 2015); Body Mind Centering

Buchanan and Hays (2014); Holt (2016); Yoga Khalsa and Cope (2006); and Dalcroze Eurythmics Daley

(2013), Greenhead (2016); Greenhead and Habron (2015).

55

students in higher education. More recent research suggests that Somatic methods

have a lot to offer student musicians, in particular, with regard to musical habits and

habitual musical responses that can stifle imagination and spontaneity and produce

automatic unmusical and uninspired playing. Somatic explorations can be useful in the

practice room too, as a practice tool together with the use of the imagination as a tool

for efficient development of coordination and instrumental technique. In addition,

Somatic methods can help students develop a better sense of balance, an improved

awareness of breath and a more robust mindbody connection between the musical

instrument itself and their musical responses either when playing solo or in interaction

with other musicians (Kleinman and Buckoke 2015: 7).

Somatic methods are increasingly understood to play a significant role in participatory

musical meaning-making and social integration.27 Research has explored ways in which

individual musicians can develop awareness of self, others and the environment

through embodied-kinaesthetic-tactile means. This can be seen, for example, in the way

first-year BMus students in their first term found Dalcroze-inspired activities valuable as

a means of getting to know each other and in developing a shared meaning of ‘a bodily

way of being in the sound’ (Juntunen 2004: 68). Here, meaning was not pre-given but

rather unfolded in a cooperative way, whereby the students actively developed

connections with each other that were linked to strengthening group cohesion and a

sense of community (van der Merwe 2014: 396). In line with such insights, Greenhead

(2016) has argued that use of Dynamic Rehearsal (DR), a Somatic practice that grew

out of Dalcroze Eurhythmics and was developed by Greenhead, is a way for music

performers to clarify their individual interpretation through the body and bodily

movement. Here, again, musical meaning is not pre-given but is explored through

individual and ensemble movement, suggesting that musical interpretation is at the

same time a foundationally corporeal, personal and social event (Greenhead 2016).

Furthermore, music interpretation can be personally relevant as it helps to clarify

27 Daley (2013); Greenhead and Habron (2015); van der Merwe (2014), Bresler (2004), van der Schyff

(2015).

56

musicians’ own feelings of the music and its movement during performance and to

communicate these ideas, non-verbally, to co-performers and to listeners.

The insights offered by a Somatic educational perspective go beyond inner-outer

frameworks to question the assumptions of pre-given affective responsorial

programmes. Student musicians’ experiences may be seen as processes of embodied

interactivity rather than as depersonalized inputs and outputs, or a learnt set of pre-

given movements that can be used to affect a given or certain musical idea or intention

in the hope that they will communicate the desired effect. With this in mind, a Somatic-

Enactive framework towards developing a pedagogical method of embodiment for pre-

professional music performance students in higher education put forward in this thesis

offers new insight into how this could be accomplished. The integration of Somatic

pedagogy and Enactive perspectives on cognition supports music students’ learning at

all stages of development to enable embodied performance. This leads towards a

foundation that can support the application of Somatic techniques and principles in

music performance pedagogy in higher education. In particular, with regard to helping

music students establish a reliable and lively interplay of inner connectivity and outer

expressivity that could lead to a richer, more embodied relationship with their

instruments, their colleagues, the environment and the music they practice and play as

they go about their daily lives as student musicians. Further, to help performers discover

what is needed within themselves, in their own selves, to accomplish, sensory-motor

security, a greater sense of agency and autonomy in their ability to explore musical

intentions, and implement and communicate their intentions with a greater sense of

ease, agency and fulfilment.

Further exploration is needed to consider how the development of a Somatic-Enactive

framework can relate to a more complex understanding of what embodied musical

experience may entail and how Somatic techniques such as movement exploration,

sensory imagery, and movement imagery in particular, can be understood through

Enactive perspectives on cognition. As a way of widening the discussion, the next

section considers Mark Johnson’s Enactivist-based perspective of ‘Image Schemata’

57

(1987; 2007; 2017), the discussion considers how image-schematic processes may play

a role in the grounding of embodied musical experience and provides an understanding

of how musicians’ Somatic experiences may be transformed into sound during practice

and performance.

2.6 Enactivism: Image Schemata and embodied musical experience

Mark Johnson’s Enactive-based theory of conceptual metaphor and image-schematic

structure of musical meaning (Johnson 2007: 257) can offer a holistic perspective and a

complex understanding of how imagery may play a role in the grounding of embodied

musical experience (ibid.: 243). While Johnson is critical of theories that endorse the

idea of representational imagery in musical experience,28 he imposes his own

hypothesized image schematic categories of musical motion, which he claims are

essentially non-representational but rather relate to ‘our felt sense of life’ (Johnson

2007: 236). This relates to the argument in this thesis by suggesting that we can be

imaginatively drawn into the music without necessarily having any theoretical

knowledge of what is happening. That music can order our experience using musical

aspects such as tone colour, pitch, meter and other processes that we feel in our

bodies. As an example of this process of musical-meaning making Johnson considers

the opening eight bars of the song ‘Over the Rainbow’ from the 1939 film The Wizard of

Oz (Arlen and Harburg 1939, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer 1939). I use the following musical

example to critique his theory and to discuss the potentialities for multi-sensory means

of structuring our movement experiences.

28 such as Langer (1958: 23), Block (1983), Kosslyn (1993), Sachs (2007), and Clarke, Williamon and

Aksentijevik (2011)

58

Example 1: Over The Rainbow Featured in the M-G-M picture The Wizard of Oz

Lyrics by E.Y. Harburg and Music by H. Arlen 1939

Johnson explains that it is difficult to abstract the meaning of the words from Judy

Garland’s first rendition of this song. However, he goes on to talk about his idea of some

of the ‘embodied structures of meaning’ (Johnson 2007: 240). Continuing to give quite a

detailed structural analysis of the song and he begins by outlining the movement of the

pitch of the first two notes (E-flat moving up an octave to E-flat). It is clear that the

octave slide from ‘some’ up to ‘where’ creates a tension, which he relates to a ‘felt

tension’ in the body. A tension we might feel as we move from the lower pitch to the

higher pitch, and the feel of straining and increased energy required by the singer to

reach the higher note. Going on, he analyses the melodic contour of the rest of the first

eight bars of the song and gives a detailed interpretation of the relationship between the

‘up and down’ movement of pitch and moments of tension and release. Although this

example gives us some insight into what Johnson understands conceptually as the felt

sense of musical motion, what is noticeably absent are the bodily factors of the

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experience – the bodily movement experience of moving what part of the body up and

down and where and how and, indeed, why?

One of the issues with this example is that although Johnson claims that the meaning in

and of the music is not verbal or linguistic, he relates the felt experience of the rising

notes of the music largely to the meaning of the lyrics. Further, he assumes that

listeners will all associate the same felt sense of longing and expectation that the rising

notes may convey. In this sense, Johnson seems to relay the idea that the music is an

external source that moves the performer’s or listener’s bodies, suggesting that the

music is something ‘out’ there a ‘force’ that we merely respond to rather than a whole

body experience of inner and outer embodied musical experiences. In addition, the

body as it features in Johnson’s theory of the felt experience of music seems to lack an

account of the motivational affective dimension or the desire to do. Or in other words,

the willingness to participate in being moved by the music and to feel in this precise

way, which may or may not be defined by the patterns of musical motion. This seems to

neglect the idea of the animate body-world interaction of Enactivism and the individual

as an autonomous experiencing agent (Bower and Gallagher 2013: 78–93).

Bower and Gallagher point out that the Enactive view of perceptual experience is

essentially a form of active engagement with one’s surroundings and is from the very

start understood to be grounded in actions and in the abilities we have for intervening

meaningfully in our environment. Seen in this way, a meaningful encounter with the

music implies that the performer has the agency to engage with her surroundings and

give any sensory motor engagement a degree of desirability and is not merely a passive

reception of sensory information that may or may not subsequently and causally

influence her performance (ibid.).

Johnson does give us helpful and important insight into the affective domain and how

factors such as the flow of our felt experience, the build-up of tension and its release,

the sense of drifting or the energetic pursuit of a goal can be affected by the capacity of

music to move us. This idea resonates with what developmental psychologist Daniel

Stern called vitality-affective contours (the patterns of process and flow of our felt

experience). Stern sums up vitality affects as ‘those dynamic, kinetic qualities of feeling

60

that distinguish animate from inanimate and that correspond to the momentary changes

in feeling states involved in the organic process of being alive’ (Stern 1985: 156). In this

way, Johnson takes into account multiple affects and their variations without the need to

refer to the precise feelings that the composer may be trying to express in a particular

piece, the exact musical ideas a performer may be trying to communicate in the

performance of the piece or the specific experience of the listener as they engaging with

the music that is played. In this way, Johnson seems to suggest that the embodied

experience of playing and listening to music can be seen as a way of feeling the

movement of the music rather than delivering an unambiguous description of how one

should feel moved by it (ibid.: 56). However, Johnson’s view may seem to fall short of

the relevance of the affective of proprioception and kinaesthesia that derive from

movement and that contribute to our practical knowledge of sensory motor events

involved in playing and listening to music (Bower and Gallagher 2013: 78-93). It is

important to note here, that while people from different backgrounds may give different

meanings to proprioception and kinaesthesia, my understanding of the nature of these

terms refers to the proprioceptive system as a whole, which has some functions that are

sensory and others which are not. The sensory functions, collectively termed

‘proprioception’, involve awareness of the sense of position and movement of our limbs,

the sense of muscle force and effort and the sense of balance. Proprioceptive sensation

is also integral to developing motor control when learning new skills. Conversely, the

contribution of the proprioceptive system to motor control during learnt skills is largely

mediated without sensation as also are its roles in reflex protection of joints against

potentially harmful forces and protection of the body against falls (balance) Stillman

2002: 667–676; Gandevia and Proke 2012).

In general, my concern with proprioception in this thesis is with proprioceptive or

kinaesthetic sensory motor integration – the relationship between the proprioceptive and

kinaesthetic sensory awareness system and the proprioceptive motor system. However,

I do not go into the bio-mechanical or neurological functions of the proprioceptive

system but rather consider ways in which the two systems may communicate with each

other to assist the learning and development process of music performance. As an

aside, the ability of musicians to sense or know where their bodies are in space (in their

61

surroundings/environment) can affect their ability to focus and concentrate. This may

allow them to move/play through a memorized piece of music without getting lost.

Further, knowledge of muscle force and effort 29 can enable musicians to accomplish

the intended degree of loudness of a certain accented note, for example, or the degree

of lightness of a particular staccato passage or in piano playing: in particular, the

balance between the left and right hands when a certain melody is to be brought out in

the left hand while the right hand plays the accompaniment or other supporting role.

Recent research suggests that musicians’ ability to refine their movement directly

through kinaesthetic awareness can affect their ability to communicate their musical

ideas. If we take this into consideration, then a focus on embodied movement can

perhaps be seen as an important element of music performance development. This may

be as a way of encouraging confidence, which in turn may allow musicians to move

more freely, with more ease at the instrument and explore their musical world more

thoroughly and openly (Lee 2018: 15–19).

Johnson suggests that much of our conceptualization and description of music uses

metaphors derived from sensory motor experience (Johnson 2007: 243). Most of this

evidence comes from analysis of language, where discourse on music is consistent with

in-the-head reasoning. For example, we can describe music as if we were

conceptualizing via Image Schemata. In this context, Johnson uses the term Image

Schemata to refer to ‘a dynamic, recurring pattern of organism-environment interaction

which establishes patterns of understanding and reasoning formed by our sensorimotor

experience’ (Johnson 2007: 136). Put more simply, Image Schemata arises from our

structural features of our bodily experience within the world we understand and act

within (Johnson ibid.).

Further, he proposes that the key to making meaning through our bodily experiences is

29 Here I refer to Laban’s concept of effort and his idea that the availability of a full range of efforts in a

person’s movement repertoire indicates that the person is able to effectively cope with environmental

challenges (Laban and Lawrence 1947). Laban identified six effort elements with which we contend with

the forces of space, weight and time: direct, indirect, strength, lightness, acceleration and deceleration.

Laban pointed out that cognitive tasks also draw on the use of efforts. For example, the effort of strength

can be linked to determination and the effort of directness to encompass direct attention (Laban

1950/2011).

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our interaction with our environment, and that our habitual adaptive patterns of

interaction can be conceptualized through metaphor as a basis for abstract thought.

Johnson and Lakoff call these adaptive patterns of interaction ‘Image Schemata’ and

describe them as ‘basic structures of sensorimotor experience by which we encounter a

world that we can understand and act within’ (Lakoff 1980; Johnson 1987: xix; 2007:

136). Johnson’s use of the term ‘schema’ differs from the way it is used in much

cognitive science, which seems to avoid the body’s involvement. Rather, his notion of

image schema expands this disembodied tendency by including the body in its

framework (2007: 11). Even so, the verbal aspect still plays a significant role in his

thinking, and the supremacy of the transformational role of language rather than body

movement/action in abstract conceptualization remains the basis of his theory.

Proposing that we make sense of our world through the way we move: right and left, up

and down, forwards and backwards, in and out, Johnson uses the term Image Schema,

to refer a multi-sensorimotor means of structuring our movement experiences rather

than as a ‘mental picture’ of human movement. He points out that it is only when these

structures of sensorimotor experiences can be used for abstract conceptualization that

we can address the question, ‘how can abstract concepts emerge from embodied

experience?’ (Johnson 2007: 141).

In dealing with this question, Johnson puts forward the idea that one way we can use

Image Schemata for abstract conceptualization is through the use of metaphor.

However, to clarify, he does not use the term ‘metaphor’ in the traditional sense as

merely a figure of speech; rather, he identifies it as ‘a pervasive, indispensable structure

of human understanding by means of which we figuratively comprehend our world’

(Johnson 1987: xx). For example, we come to know the structures of balance first as a

body experience – in learning how to stand and walk on two legs, how to ride a bike or

how to change our weight to manipulate a see-saw in the playground. He claims that

these experiences do not involve learning a set of rules or knowledge of concepts such

as gravity, weight or equilibrium; they are experiences that are understood physically.

We first learn to stand on two feet by constantly getting up and falling over until we

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finally sense how it feels to keep upright. Johnson suggests that we can extend this

experience of balance via the Balance schema. The following discussion gives an

explanation of some of the Image Schemata that were relevant to this thesis and will be

used in later discussions and interpretation of the findings.

The Balance schema involves a symmetrical arrangement of forces around a point or

axis (Johnson 1987: 85). Figure 2.1 illustrates a basic Axis Balance schema.

Figure 2.1 Axis Balance schema (Johnson 1987: 86)

Johnson shows how it is possible that metaphor can play a role in structuring our

meaning of ‘balance’, which is understood both as a bodily experience and as a

concept. He does this by showing that we come to know the meaning of ‘balance’

through different senses of the term. On the one hand, we can experience balance as a

bodily activity. Yet on the other, we can experience it as a visual concept, in art or

music, or as a psychological state of well-being, for example. However, in each case,

Johnson claims that we extend our structures of balance by metaphorical elaborations.

That is, we project experiences of balance from the physical domain into abstract

domains of understanding. For example, we can understand the concept of well-being

in terms of balance. We say things like, ‘I am just about to explode’ or ‘today I feel more

on an even keel’. In this case, we are using metaphors to conceptualize our experience

of well-being and describe the structures of our experience (Johnson 1987: 89). In a

musical example, we can understand the concept of emphasis in the performance of a

piece of music in terms of balance. We say things like, ‘I played that a little too heavily’

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or ‘I need to feel more poised when I play that challenging octave section’ or ‘I felt the

tempo was unsteady there’. What this suggests is that there may be a correlation

between our aural perception of metaphorical musical weights and stability and our

physical/gravitational experiences with weight and stability. As Johnson proposes, ‘it

might seem that there is some general literal concept of balance that applies equally to

all cases’ – the balancing of body, thinking and musical events (Johnson 1987: 81). In

the following paragraphs, I continue the discussion of Johnson’s notion of Image

Schemata, embodied experience and musical meaning, and how this informed the

empirical research process.30

In examining the literature further, Mark Johnson and George Lakoff’s Metaphors We

Live By (1980: 14–21), and Johnson’s The Body in the Mind (1987) and The Meaning of

the Body (2007) were important resources in the development of this thesis. In

particular, discussion of the pervasiveness of metaphor in everyday life, not just in

language but also in thoughts and action, provided valuable insight into how we can

gain a deeper understanding of the experiential grounding of structural metaphors to do

with spatial orientation: metaphors based on physical concepts such as up–down, in–

out, front–back, on–off, deep–shallow, centre–periphery. Sheets-Johnstone goes further

and suggests that a sense of movement and position also includes tactility and

gravitational orientation. Furthermore, this sense of movement is experienced through

vestibular sensory organs as well as kinaesthesia, which in its primary sense denotes

an awareness of dynamics, and hence an awareness of qualitatively felt kinetic flow.

Sheets-Johnstone goes on to add that the discussion of body and movement has to

include kinaesthesia as it is the very stuff of life (Sheets-Johnstone 2009: 217–234).

I chose to focus on Johnson’s theory of Image Schemata as a means of interpreting and

attributing meaning to my data because, in addition to conceptual metaphor, this notion

has Somatic Movement experiential relevance. Johnson suggests that the way in which

we move is one of the ways we make sense of what our world is like and who we are.

30 A table of the Image Schemata discussed in this thesis can be found in Appendix Q.

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As previously mentioned, Johnson argues that ‘attention to bodily movement is one of

the keys to understanding how things and experiences become meaningful to

organisms like us, via our sensorimotor capacities’ (Johnson 2007: 19). In this sense,

Johnson’s ideas help to explain embodied musical meaning making in a world that

makes sense to us and to understand musical perceptual knowledge in terms of both

our movements and our interactions with moving objects (ibid.: 19). In the following

sections, I explore these ideas with reference to my research questions.

One of the aspects of Johnson’s theoretical framework for images schemata that I will

consider first is the notion of ‘felt experience’ as a basis for meaning making (Johnson

2007: 26 and 43). Johnson observes that our sense of movement can be first

experienced in the womb, and continues throughout our lives to change and develop in

various ways depending on social, cultural and environmental influences. Thus, the

possibility of change and our connection and interaction with a particular environment

are important aspects of the felt experience. Furthermore, Johnson stresses the

significance of the interactive process of experience of our self in a particular world and

points out that ‘there is no movement without the space we move in, the things we

move, and the qualities of the world we experience’ (Johnson 2007: 20). In line with the

Enactivist perspective, this highlights Johnson’s notion that ‘in our experience of

movement, there is no radical separation of self from world’ (Johnson ibid.). On a

another level, Sheets-Johnstone suggests that as humans we not only have the

tendency to want to move but that we discover ourselves in movement as well as find

out about the world and what this means to us. Further, she expands on Johnson’s idea

of felt qualities by drawing attention to the centrality of the body and, in particular, to the

way we grow into distinctive ways of moving through experienced ‘arms that extend,

spines that bend, knees that flex, mouths that shut, and so on’ (Sheets-Johnstone 1999:

136). The important distinction here seems to be the focus on how we make sense of

ourselves in the process of moving within some particular environment/surroundings

rather than how movement can allow us to make sense of the world. This perhaps gives

more scope for understanding embodied human meaning-making, which takes into

account the phenomenological sense of moving as well as the Enactive perspective of

cognition.

66

To clarify, Johnson describes the qualities of the world that we experience through

movement that occurs within an environment as the qualities of things, spaces and

forceful exertions. For example, Johnson uses the Container schema to explain how we

learn about containment and limitation by our everyday experience of putting things into

and taking things out of a cupboard or drawer. Figure 2.2 illustrates the visual

representation of the Container schema offered by Saslaw (1996: 219).

Figure 2.2 Container schema (Saslaw 1996: 219)

In order to gain a closer idea of the nature and working of a movement derived image-

schema, I would like to focus for a moment on the Container schema. Johnson provides

a sampling of usages of this particular schema, the elements of which are an interior, an

exterior and a boundary between the two. As such, ‘in–out’ is another way to refer to

this schema:

Consider … only a few of the in–out orientations that might occur in the first

few minutes of any day. You wake out of a deep sleep and peer out from

beneath the covers into your room. You gradually emerge out of your

stupor, pull yourself out from under the covers, climb into your robe, stretch

out your limbs and walk in a daze out of your bedroom into the bathroom.

(Johnson 1987: 30–31)

Some of the orientations are bodily and directly experienced, for example ‘walking into

the bathroom’; consider, however, what one is coming out of when one emerges from a

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stupor or a deep sleep, or what one is in when one is in a daze. One way to think about

this is to treat our mental states as containers that we are in’ (Saslaw 1996: 218).

If we project this schema onto music, it can be used to embody the tonality of a

particular piece of music as being in a certain key signature or modulating out of a

certain key into a different one. We can also use it to reflect on our own bodies as

entities with insides that are enclosed and kept separate from the outside world by our

skins. We put things into our bodies: food, water, medicines. We can also experience

our bodies as being in other containers. We move in and out of rooms, buildings and

cars, for instance. In addition, we can also experience our bodies as moving within our

kinaesphere as containment.31 As an example, we move in and out within the confines

of our personal space as we reach out to play at the extremity of the piano keyboard or

gather ourselves in to play cluster harmonies or intricate close voicings. With regard to

spatial movement qualities, we experience direct and indirect paths of motion as we

move through the music from moment to moment. We experience the degree of effort

we need to move from one section of the music to another or to move sounds of various

weights and forces from one moment to another. For example, the amount of exertion

you need to move from one end of the piano keyboard to the other is different from the

amount of exertion you need to step from one key to another, and the degree of effort

needed to move a heavy full-bodied chord is different from the effort needed to move

one that is sparse.32

31 The notion of ‘kinaesphere’ was created by Rudolf Laban to define ‘the sphere around the body whose

periphery can be reached by easily extending limbs without stepping away from that place which is the

point of support when standing on one foot’ (1966/2011: 10). It was later developed by Peggy Hackney

and Carl Wolz (Hackney 2002: 223) to include ways of approaching and revealing one’s kinaesphere.

32 Here I have drawn on my knowledge of Laban Movement Analysis (LMA: Laban 1950/2011)

terminology – for example terms such as space, shape direct, indirect, flow and effort relate to describing

and documenting human movement. These basic elements can be used for generating movement or for

describing movement. They provide an inroad to understanding movement and for developing movement

efficiency and expressiveness. It is the way we combine these and other movement elements to create

phrases and relationships that may give insight into what humans beings have in common and what

makes us unique. It is the phrasing of the elements – how they are patterned and sequenced together

that the individual is personally expressive and forms relationships. It is important to note here, that the

basic elements can be combined in many various ways. Each person having their own unique set ways of

moving and combining the movement elements and the movement message will probably not be the

same. For example, in a piano performance context, one pianist might initiate a musical phrase with a

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The movement image schemas identified by Johnson and Lakoff (1980) and Johnson

(1987) can be categorized into two types. The first deals with the body itself. For

example, the Container schema is derived from our own sense that one’s body is a

container with an inside and an outside. The second type deals with our sense of

orientation in space and relationship to the world. For instance the Source–Path–Goal

schema originates from our understanding that when we move anywhere there is a

place from which we start, a sequence of events along the way that connect the start

with the ending, plus a direction. Figure 2.3 illustrates the Source–Path–Goal Schema.

Figure 2.3 Source–Path–Goal schema (Saslaw 1996: 219)

In this way, it seems that Image Schemata derived from movement have an internal

structure. Take for example the Source–Path–Goal schema, which can be very

important in our concept of the musical phrase (Saslaw 1996: 219). First of all, the

schema has a grounding in bodily experience. When we move anywhere, there is a

place or a moment from which we start, a sequence of adjoining events that connect the

starting point with the ending, and a direction The basic structure of the schema is that

in proceeding from a source to a destination along a path, one must go through all the

intermediate points on the path and that the further along the path you are, the more

time has passed. In terms of music, a musical phrase can be said to follow a pathway

from a departure point through a musical pathway selected and refined by the performer

in conjunction with reference to the score and consideration of the composer’s

intentions.

Further evidence of bodily derived Image Schemata with regard to an embodied

shrinking and falling movement that is weak and indirect, and end the phrase with a light, flowing

movement. And another pianist playing the same phrase may use completely different set and

combination of movements to communicate their musical phrasing ideas.

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perspective of musical phrasing can be found in the writing of American composer, critic

and teacher of music, Roger Sessions (1972). Johnson also uses examples of

Sessions’ work to illustrate his thinking about the grounding of music in the living,

moving, thinking, feeling body (Johnson 2007: 237). The discussion in the next section

offers a link with the notion of Image Schemata and musical phrasing. It is hoped that

this will provide an understanding of links between musical phrasing, embodiment and

Image Schemata that will help to ground discussion in the chapters that deal with

analyses and discussion of the findings.

2.6.1 Concepts of musical phrasing and Image Schemata

I decided to focus on Sessions’ ideas here because they provide a self-contained

examination of the musical experience of the performer’s embodied relationship with

sound. His notions about the musical experience show evidence of several bodily

derived Image Schemata. In particular, his discussions about a musical phrase as

movement of breath draws our attention to the fundamental importance of embodiment

attached to this musical phenomenon in the music-making process.

In the first chapter of his book, titled ‘The Musical Impulse’ (Sessions 1972), he

describes a musical phrase as an expansion of a single breath, a constant movement

towards a goal, and a portion of the music that must be performed without letting go

(Sessions 1972: 13). Unusually, he does not regard the cadence (a melodic, harmonic

or rhythmic configuration of notes/sounds that creates a sense of repose or resolution)

as being the end of the phrase, as often observed in established music theory, but as

the movement of release. This idea may come from the Latin origin of the word

‘cadence’, which is derived from the verb ‘cadere’ meaning ‘falling’. However, Sessions’

focus on breath in relation to phrasing is relevant here as a means of embodiment. In

particular, this idea resonates with Hackney’s perspective of breath as she relates it to

the continuous flow of emptying and filling, filling and emptying in an ever ongoing cycle

(Hackney 2002: 51). Seen in this way, a cycle of a single breath can be seen as a single

movement phrase but it could also be seen as single music phrase in that both start out

with a preparation, before any visible movement happens - where an individual

prepares within for that action. There follows a moment of making oneself ready,

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coming to intent. In this way, the movement or the life of the phrase can perhaps be

brought to consciousness in the learning stage of the concept of musical phrasing.

In contrast Burkhart’s analytical model of musical phrasing focuses on the abstract

analysis of the score rather than on an embodied approach (Burkhart 2005: 5).

Burkhart’s model is one way by which musicians can approach making decisions about

musical phrasing, but relying on the score for objective information or clues can have its

drawbacks due to an overdependence on what the musician can see in the score rather

than what she can hear, experience or feel. Here, it is perhaps worth noting that a

kinaesthetic model of musical phrasing based on Bartenieff’s notion of a movement

phrase may be a possible way of exploring, implementing and communicating musical

phrasing idea based on the individual expression of movement. This challenges the

reliance on visualism and objective information gathered from the score. In this way, the

focus is shifted more to the use of kinaesthetic imagery, anatomical knowledge,

dynamic, spatial and shapeful intent (Bartenieff 2002: 240; Smith 1989: 121–124). It

would seem that both models interact with and inform each other. It is important that

musicians can analyse the score in an abstract way: they need to know how the notes

relate to each other and how certain melodic shapes and harmonic language may

inform the direction and motion of the music. But they also need to know how

preparation for the moment of the departure of a phrase, for example, can be echoed in

the body. Where in the body does the movement begin so the musician is able to do

what they want to do in the way that they choose? Bartenieff suggests that this

experience of the first movement moment is crucial because by this point in the phrase,

the pathway of action has already been set up. This is crucial for musicians as well as

dancers in that any desired change in the way the phrase unfolds or unravels will have

to return to this moment in order to change or repattern the shape of the phrase

(Hackney 2002: 240).

Returning to the idea of the primal pattern of breath, we can also relate Sessions’ notion

of phrase to three different Image Schemata that seem to be constantly at play in his

conception of musical phrase. In addition to the Container schema, which seems to

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relate more to his idea of the ‘falling’ of a cadence at the end of a phrase, these are the

Source–Path–Goal schema and the Centre–Periphery schema.

Picking up the idea of ‘falling’, a cadence can be seen to drop or come down freely until

it rests before moving on. In this sense, a cadence forms the ‘release’ from one phrase

to another. Relating this to the Container schema, events occurring before the cadence

can be seen as ‘in’ a state of tension and events after it are ‘out’ of that particular state

of tension and are in release. As a ‘falling’, the cadence is the release point of a

Source–Path–Goal journey starting with the departure of the phrase and passing

through a small or large number of musical events, harmonies, melodic intervals,

rhythmic elaborations. Since this journey departs and arrives in a single breath, it can

be represented as a circular Source–Path–Goal schema. Sessions refers to this

schema when he says:

What, for instance, is a so-called ‘musical phrase’ if not the portion of music

that must be performed, so to speak, without letting go, or, figuratively, in a

single breath. The phrase is a constant movement toward a goal – the

cadence. (Sessions 1972: 13)

On the other hand, the simplest musical phrase, in Sessions’ view, begins with the

inhalation of a breath which is followed by the constant movement of the breath until the

moment of exhalation. A combination of fluidity of movement, internal shaping, the

experience of inner space as three-dimensional and a basic sense of trust in being

(Hackney 2002: 218). Here we see that Sessions understands the relationship of

phrases in terms of a directly experienced Centre–Periphery bodily image schema

(Figure 2.4). As Johnson explains:

Our world radiates out from our bodies as perceptual centres from which we

see, touch, taste and smell our world. Our perceptual space defines a

domain of macroscopic objects that reside at varying distances from us.

(Johnson 1987: 124)

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Figure 2.4 Centre–Periphery schema (Johnson 1987: 124)

The Centre–Periphery schema appears to be motivated by Sessions’ Source–Path–

Goal understanding of the movement of musical phrases. If a phrase is in motion along

a path in a certain direction, then the distance along the path may be experienced in

terms of its relationship to the centre of our bodies. From this centre, some musical

events of the phrase may be understood to be close and others far away. What is close

and in the foreground at one moment, such as an expressive focal point in the phrase,

may be in the background at the next, depending on how we move the music or in the

way the musical event moves in relation to us if we are listening rather than playing

music. This passage makes another point clear about Sessions’ Source–Path–Goal

embodied conception of phrase: what is constantly moving along the path from the

source to the goal are the thought processes of the composer, performer and listener.

Thus, the thought process is depicted as moving through space and time.33

The implications of embodiment and Image Schemata for music performers have been

explored by several music theorists (Brower 2000: 323–380; Saslaw 1996: 217–244;

Zbikowski 1997, 2008) who have attempted to explain our experiences of rhythmic and

tonal structures in music by reference to so-called body-derived image schemas.

However, the aim of much research has been the exploration of the mind behind our

musical activities and the input of the body to musical cognition has been neglected.

Clarke and Davidson (1998: 74) suggest that this type of research is responsible for

33 Again, I use LMA/BF terminology here. Space: where is the body moving; Time: how is the body

moving – in a sustained way or in a staccato way; Relationships: how we relate to ourselves and to other

human beings and the wider world (Hackney 2002: 15).

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fostering a disembodied approach to music performance pedagogy. An approach where

both ‘listeners and performers are regarded as information-processing devices, with

inputs and outputs coming to and going from a central “unit” which is located firmly in

the head. This has little connection with anything bodily experiential such as the

movement of an arm, a leg, a hand or even an ear’. The main issue here is that these

disembodied approaches have difficulty expressing the human movement factors

involved in musicians’ embodied experience of music, which would seem to involve

more than cause and affect responses, neurological processing and analytical appraisal

of the score/sound produced. To be clear, I am not claiming that such approaches

should be abandoned. Rather, by contrasting and supplementing their methods with the

Somatic and Enactive principles and perspectives I hope to encourage further research

toward the development of an integrated framework that can support the relevance and

subsequent application of a Somatic-Enactive approach. The following section explores

this idea further.

2.7 Towards a Somatic–Enactive approach

This chapter has explored the potentiality of developing a Somatic-Enactive framework

toward an embodied pedagogy for music performance students in higher education,

with a particular focus on the aspect of musical phrasing in piano playing. Essentially,

this idea is not based on notions of inner/outer orientations, inputs and outputs

(information processing models), mind/body separation, or in-the-head representational

models that suggest all information is understood in the skull. Rather, is based on the

fundamental life processes of embodied knowing through which musicians can develop

and make connections between practice, performance and everyday life. This may offer

a way to explore musical experience and embodiment in the context of the movement

processes common to all human beings as well as respect for the uniqueness and

agency of the individual music student. In doing so, it may deepen understanding of the

significance of conscious awareness of movement processes for student musicians as a

fundamental means of establishing a reliable connection to their lives and playing

music, so that they are more likely to have the confidence and skills to be able to do

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what they want to do in the way that they choose (Kleinman and Buckoke 2015: 4).34

Further, it may provide insight into the relevance of the development of performer

agency for music students. In particular, in considering the role of human movement as

a means of making sense of how they can explore all the possibilities of interconnection

such as self to self, self to other, self to world in the music they play, while at the same

time connecting directly to the constitution of the lived musical experience (Hackney

2002; Husserl 1913/1989; Merleau-Ponty 1962/2002).

The Somatic–Enactive approach to music performance learning is not without its critics.

Some argue that the cognitive and physical processes underlying all music activities are

best understood as brain-based mechanisms, and some claim that musical imagery

refers to the experience of replaying music by imagining it ‘in the head’ (Halpern 2006:

179–192). Others involved in cognitive neuroscience of music have suggested that

musical meaning is based on analysis of musical structure and see musical perception

as a faculty on its own completely dissociated from musical action (Zatorre et al. 1996;

Levitin 2006; and Levitin and Tirovolas 2009) and further claim that the ‘brain is sculpted

by music experience’ (Zatorre 2005: 312–315). One major criticism of the Somatic

approach to music learning is that its concepts are too vague and that subjective ideas

such as authentic and real experiences are difficult to objectify; an experience that is

real for one person may not be real for another. Further, Enactivism has been criticized

by cognitivists for being unable to bridge the ‘cognitive gap’, that is, provide a

convincing account of those higher forms of cognition that have traditionally been the

focus of cognitive science such as social cognition (de Bruin and Kastner 2012: 541–

563).35 It is also important to note that there are various viewpoints about how Somatic

34 For example, a piano student may not realize that she could let her arm lift upwards from underneath

the scapula (shoulder blade) in an easy flowing manner when playing full chords rather than hitching up

her shoulders to communicate her intention of a weighted flowing connection more clearly, such as in the

opening of Rachmaninov’s Prelude in C-sharp Minor Op.3, No.2 (1982). Or alternatively she might re-

experience a feeling from a Somatic Movement activity of herself doing exactly what she wants to do,

such as letting her arms lift and drop onto the piano keys with energy to spare and a sense of ease as

she finishes the large chordal section of the piece.

35 As an aside, it should be noted that Somatic and Enactivist frameworks are being developed in

different empirical contexts; see Abramson & Trninic (2015); Röhricht, Gallagher & Geuter (2014); van der

Schyff (2015); Krain & Ilundain-Argurruza (2017); and Antilla (2018).

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and Enactivist ideas can be understood. Rather, than seeing this an alternative

pedagogical method, I see it as a way of considering how Somatic–Enactive

approaches can work together with established approaches to music performance

learning pedagogy, with a focus on playing the piano, in higher education in a

complementary way. I explore the relevance of a Somatic-Enactive pedagogy further

through phenomenological research studies of university level music performance

students’ experiences of Somatic educational techniques designed to facilitate the

integration of mindbody awareness and sensory-motor skills for embodied performance.

The next chapter presents the research design and methodology.

2.8 Summary

This chapter has presented a discussion of the themes and guiding concepts I explored

in this thesis. I have given an understanding of embodied musical experience,

Enactivism and Somatics and the relationship between these disciplines and playing the

piano. I have also outlined Johnson’s work, discussing his notions of the felt experience

of bodily motion, and his theory of Image Schemata and how this has informed the

study, despite its limitations. This included a focus on the metaphoric conceptualization

of the relationship between music and movement rather than purely on physical action

and concrete sensory imagery.

As a way of expanding the Enactive perspective, I have discussed Somatic Movement

practice and in particular the work of Laban, Bartenieff and Skinner. I extended the

discussion to include a deeper consideration of Skinner Releasing Technique (SRT) as

a way of considering the possibilities for exploring the meaning participants in the study

attributed to their experiences – in particular, their physical experiences, kinaesthetic

experiences and experiences of interaction with other participants, their instruments and

the music they played during the movement/music exercises in the empirical part of the

study. I explored music and movement of the body as a way of knowing. I looked more

deeply into the notion behind SRT and its implications for music performers in terms of

enhancing their use of conscious practice, imagination and sensory imagery through

guided movement explorations as a method for practising, with a particular focus on

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practising the piano. The next chapter outlines the empirical part of this research

project. It presents the phenomenological research design and methodology I used to

gain further insight into the relevance of developing a pedagogical method of

embodiment for pre-professional music students that embraces a Somatic–Enactive

methodological framework. This gave me the opportunity to explore the direct lived

experiences of pre-professional music students in their first year of study at university.

Further, this allowed me to gain unique insight into how individual music students

engaged with a Somatic Movement approach to exploring, implementing and

communicating their own musical phrasing ideas and fulfilling their musical intentions in

the music they play.

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Chapter 3: Research design and methodology

Phenomenological methodology provides the ground for exploring and charting

movement and its primary sense modality, kinaesthesia. It does so by eschewing

common everyday beliefs about movement, such as movement is a force in time

and in space’ or movement is equivalent to ‘action’ ... a phenomenological requires

investigation of both real time, real life experiences of movement and imaginary

experiences of movement. (Maxine Sheets-Johnstone 2015)

3.1 Introduction

In this chapter I present the research design. This encompasses the research paradigm

and its phenomenological assumptions and framework, and the methods used to gather

data and derive meaning from them. The design is supported by criteria to ensure

quality in interpretative research: rigour (Lincoln and Guba 2000) and credibility (Koch

and Harrington 1998; Denzin and Lincoln 2000). In addition, attention is given to ethical

conduct of the research and critical reflection on the research bias and the role of the

researcher in the research.

3.2 Research paradigm

Finding ways to explore, implement and communicate musical phrasing choices with

greater security and clarity is an essential learning process for pre-professional music

students in higher education. At the level of the individual phrase, there are infinite

possibilities for the individual performer to vary the so-called expressive devices

available in music performance such as timing, pitch and dynamic shape (Jensen and

Kühl 2009: 81). The goal of experiencing musical phrasing through a Somatic

Movement approach fits with the philosophy, strategies and intentions of an Interpretive

Research Paradigm. The Interpretative Research Paradigm is associated with the

philosophical position of idealism, and is used to group together diverse approaches,

including social constructivism, phenomenology and hermeneutics (Creswell 2013).

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Within this tradition there is usually a rejection of the view that ‘truths’ about the social

world can be established by using natural science methods. This is essentially due to

the nature of the subject matter of the social sciences, namely, people. People have

individual ideas and socially and culturally shaped habits about the world and attach

meaning to what is going on around them. Their behaviour in particular depends on

these ideas and meanings (Robson 2002: 24). Interpretivist researchers consider that

the task of the researcher is to understand the multiple social constructions of meaning

and knowledge. Hence, they tend to use research methods such as interviews and

observation that allow them to acquire multiple perspectives. (ibid.). The investigative

approaches focus on interpretive understanding to access the meaning of participants’

experiences as opposed to explaining or predicting their behaviour, which is the goal of

quantitative research (Smith 1983).

According to the interpretive paradigm, meanings are constructed by human beings in

unique ways, depending on their context and personal frames of reference as they

engage with the world they are interpreting (Crotty 1998). In this type of research

findings emerge from the interactions of the researcher and the participants as the

research unfolds (Creswell 1998). Therefore, subjectivity is valued. There is

acknowledgment that humans are incapable of total objectivity because they are

situated in a reality constructed by subjective experiences. Furthermore, the research is

value-bound by the nature of the questions being asked, the values held by the

researcher and the ways findings are generated and interpreted (Ajjawi and Higgs 2007:

614).

In choosing an interpretive paradigm certain assumptions and perspectives are

accepted. Musical phrasing and the implementation of musical phrasing choices are

cognitive, physical and interactive processes that in context are frequently taken for

granted. These phenomena cannot maintain their essential and embedded features if

they are measured quantitatively. Both decision making and the implementation of

choices in such a way that they are clearly communicated are complex phenomena

involving multiple strategies, purposes and interpretations. Moreover, these processes

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are contextually bound, in terms of the people involved, the situation and the setting.

Attempting to measure decision making, the implementation of choices or

communication in musical performance as specific non-contextual processes ignores

the complexity and consequences of these activities in this practice.

I viewed the interpretive paradigm as the most suitable for this research because of its

potential to access the meaning of participants’ experiences. Furthermore, it has the

potential to generate new understandings of complex multidimensional human

phenomenon related to the performance of music such as musical phrasing,

experiential learning, and sensory awareness with an emphasis on kinaesthetic

awareness.

3.3 Research methodology

Hermeneutic phenomenology was chosen as a suitable methodology for this research,

informed by the work of Max van Manen (1997 and 2007, 2014). Phenomenology is an

umbrella term encompassing both a philosophical movement and a range of research

approaches. The phenomenological movement was initiated by the German philosopher

Edmond Husserl (b.1859–1938) in the first half of the twentieth century. Husserl

developed a philosophy for phenomenology that covered the basic rules of experience.

His conception of phenomenology was concerned with the systematic reflection on and

study of the structures of consciousness and the description and classification of the

phenomena that appear in acts of consciousness without attempt at explanation or

interpretation (Thorpe and Holt 2008: 152). This branch of phenomenology is often

referred to as transcendental phenomenology and is built around the idea of suspending

all personal opinion in an attempt to reveal the core or essence of a phenomena from a

purely objective standpoint. Later theorists such as Heidegger (b.1889–1976) reworked

the phenomenological focus, moving away from a philosophical discipline that

highlighted consciousness and essences of phenomena towards the elaboration of

existential and hermeneutic dimensions (Findlay 2009). These concerned the

description and interpretation of the individual human experience, which included taking

into account personal opinion. Furthermore, hermeneutic phenomenology concerns

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itself with the quest for understanding the human experience and, perhaps more

significantly, how human beings interpret and give meaning to language and action

(Thorpe and Holt 2008: 94–94).

Applied to research, phenomenology is the study of how things appear to people

through experience: that is, the nature and meaning of phenomena. The

phenomenological researcher aims to provide a rich description of individuals’ lived

experience. This is defined in this research as ‘personal knowledge about the world

gained through direct, first-hand involvement in everyday events rather than through

representations constructed by other people’ (Chandler and Munday 2011). Put another

way, lived experience is people’s perception of the world in which they live and what it

means to them (Langdridge 2007: 4). Langdridge clarifies this further by suggesting that

phenomenology as a qualitative research approach allows the researcher to focus on

human experience as a topic in its own right. Moreover, it permits the researcher to

explore the way meaning arises in individuals’ life-worlds. In this research ‘life-world’

refers to the everyday world with which we are familiar and which we ordinarily take for

granted as our paramount reality (Chandler and Munday 2011). In other words, it refers

to the world as we immediately experience it pre-reflectively rather than as we

conceptualize, categorize or reflect on it (Husserl 1936/1970; Schutz and Luckmann

1973). In this sense, phenomenology aims to gain a deeper understanding of the nature

or meaning of our everyday experiences.

Phenomenology is not a singular unified philosophy or methodology. Nevertheless, it

can be categorized into three branches or schools of thought. As briefly described

above, these are transcendental phenomenology, existential phenomenology and

hermeneutic phenomenology. As this research project uses a hermeneutic

phenomenological research approach, I give a more detailed overview of it here, its

suitability for the study.

Hermeneutic phenomenology is observant of the philosophies supporting both

hermeneutics and phenomenology. It is a ‘research methodology aimed at producing

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rich textual description and interpretation of the ‘experiential meanings we live as we

live them’ (van Manen 1997: 10) and aims at ‘gaining a deeper understanding of the

nature or meaning of our everyday experiences’ (ibid.: 8). It does not set out to provide

the ‘possibility of effective theory with which we can now explain and/or control the

world, but rather it offers us the possibility of plausible insights that bring us in more

direct contact with the world’ (ibid.: 9). Hermeneutics refers to the branch of knowledge

that deals with interpretation. Initially, it was used by theologians in ‘interpreting the

bible so that it was meaningful to a society very different from the one in which it was

originally written’ (Robson 2002: 196). However, it is now used more widely to interpret

conversations or interactions, for example, and attempts to explicate meanings in some

depth. This differs from other interpretive approaches in that it does not aim to ‘explicate

meanings specific to particular cultures (ethnography), to certain social groups

(sociology), to historical periods (history) to psychology or to an individual’s personal life

history (biography). Rather, hermeneutic phenomenology attempts to explicate the

meanings as we live them in our everyday existence, our life-world’ (van Manen 1997:

11). This occurs through a process of increasingly deeper and layered reflection

accomplished through the use of rich descriptive language.

The choice of research methodology depends on the research question/s and the

philosophical position perspectives from which the question/s are going to be

investigated. As mentioned above, phenomenology is concerned with lived experience

and is thus ideal for investigating the personal experiences of the participants in the

present study. However, the main focus of phenomenological study is pre-reflective

experiences and feelings (van Manen 1997: 10). Since a key aspect of this research

project was to explore and chart the movement and the experiences of pre-professional

musicians to a Somatically-informed approach to musical phrasing, the use of

hermeneutic phenomenology enabled me to delve deeper into participants’ movement

experiences with further abstraction and interpretation of documented experiences

based on my theoretical and personal knowledge. Hermeneutics added the

interpretative element that helped me to explicate meanings and uncover the nature of

an experience that participants may have had difficulty articulating, for example,

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regarding their experience of kinaesthetic imagery or awareness – or in other words,

what it felt like to do certain movements during the workshops. In this way, embodied

movement experience and the embodied experience of performing music were seen as

complimentary and offered a way of ‘seeing’ and understanding such moments of

interaction within self and between self, others, and the physical and social

environment.

As with all research methodologies there are inbuilt advantages and disadvantages with

using hermeneutic phenomenology. As a research approach it had much to offer my

research focus and provided a way of gaining insight into the phenomena of the

individual lived experience. However, the subjective nature of the data led to difficulties

in establishing reliability and validity of the research process and the data collecting and

analysis methods. As hermeneutics contributes to qualitative research methodology the

notion of an active involvement by the researcher in the research process, this led to the

difficulty of researcher bias and the difficulty of presenting the results in a manner that

could be usable or/and useful to music students, educators and the wider research

community (van Manen 1997: 33).

One of the reasons this difficulty occurred was because of the tension created by my

embeddedness in the research context as both facilitator and researcher and the

process of interpretation. Another difficulty was the need as a researcher to put aside

any preconceptions about the research topic so that I was able to experience the

phenomena as if for the first time (Robson 2002: 198; Sheets-Johnson 2015). I

addressed this challenge by trying to make sure the research process was detailed so

that it was possible to avoid appearing distrustful with regard to basing interpretations

on my pre-understandings, suppositions, assumptions and biased perspectives (van

Manen 1997: 46; Bentz and Shapiro 1998: 105–114). Nevertheless, as the researcher

and the facilitator of the research methods, this was particularly difficult during the

movement/music workshops. However, I was always aware of the issue of bias and

endeavoured to keep a fresh outlook on the work and how it was unfolding.

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On reflection, it may have been helpful to have invited a Somatic practitioner to devise

and run the workshops so that I could observe rather than facilitate and observe. It may

also have been helpful to have joined in the workshops with the participants so that I

could share their experience and be able to talk about that afterwards. However, I was

able to develop a good rapport with the participants and this helped me see them as

individuals rather than merely as participants. In turn, this perhaps gave me the

opportunity to develop a certain amount of trust, which may have enable participants to

be more open in talking about their experiences. Furthermore, a Somatic way of

movement requires participants to be free with their movement and take on an

exploratory and curious interest about learning their bodies and gaining knowledge

through movement. A sense of trust is important to this. On the other hand the fact that I

had devised the workshops may have made them less likely to open up, especially if

they thought that I might be displeased by what they said, or found it difficult to refrain

from doing a certain movement exercise they felt uncomfortable doing. All the

participants were volunteers. They were all informed about the research process and

importantly given the right to withdraw if they felt uncomfortable at any point. To help

with this, I made sure that after each session participants had the opportunity to

feedback their thoughts and feelings about how they thought things were going and if

they wanted to continue.

On a practical note, it was important to consider the possible difficulties participants may

have had in articulating themselves. For some this may have included the issue of

working in a foreign language, or embarrassment at having to do something that they

were not used to doing in a music performance learning context. As mentioned above,

this could affect the validity of the results of the data collection process as pre-

professional musician participants may find doing the movement exercises awkward

and they may have felt uncomfortable being observed, which could have influenced

their engagement with the exercises, with other participants in the group and with me,

as the facilitator and researcher. This may have jeopardized the validity of the outcome

as participants may have found it embarrassing or too personal to articulate what it felt

like to do certain movements during the workshops. Even though I tried to ensure

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participants felt at ease and comfortable with me as the researcher and to others in the

group by being sensitive to their levels of comfort and by developing a sense of respect

and human compassion, I acknowledge that this could have affected the way

participants responded to the movement exercises in the workshop. I also had an

opportunity to reflect on my practice and consider how I was presenting the work, and in

particular whether the language I was using was appropriate for a Somatic Movement

workshop, specifically in terms of ‘embodied’ language. This was something I became

more aware of as the workshops progressed. As a way of trialling my research

methods, I decided to run a pilot project that would enable me to explore my methods

and reflect on any changes that needed to be made especially regarding the design of

the workshops and the reliability of my own facilitation and the influence of that onto the

research outcome. Due to the importance of this process, the pilot study evolved into a

more robust investigation than originally planned. However, I continued to think of it as

pilot project even though, in hindsight, it may have been better described as a

preparatory study.

3.4 The pilot study participants

The goal of hermeneutic phenomenological research is to develop a rich interpretive

description of the phenomenon being investigated in a particular context. What

differentiates phenomenological description from other kinds of descriptions is that it

aims at clarifying lived experience, as described earlier (van Manen 1997: 26). To

maximize validity, I chose a purposive selection method to selecting participants who

may be able to provide rich data for detailed study, as recommended by several authors

for this type of research (Denzin and Lincoln 2000; Patton 2002; Robson 2002;

Cresswell 2013). These were participants who could potentially illuminate the

phenomena of learning to explore, implement and communicate musical phrasing

choices with greater security and clarity through a Somatic Movement approach. This

method of selecting participants is consistent with interpretive paradigm research

(Robson 2002).

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First-year undergraduate music performance students were chosen as a target group

because I anticipated that they may have an interest in the research topic, a breadth

and depth of experience of implementing musical phrasing choices in performance, and

insight into learning to implement musical phrasing choices with greater security and

clarity through their musical learning experiences/journeys so far. The criteria for

recruiting volunteer participants from this target group were: pre-professional music

students in their first year of study at an institute of higher education in the UK, who

were studying performance, and who had no or very little experience of using a Somatic

Movement approach within a formal music performance learning context.

As a means of informing participants about the project and what was involved, I offered

a one-off seminar on the role of the Somatic Movement and learning in music

performance to first year pre-professional music performance students at the institution

where they were studying. At the end of the seminar, I briefly introduced my research

project, gave out participant information sheets (Appendix C) and invited people to

leave their contact details so that I could arrange a meeting to explain the project in

more detail for those who might be interested in taking part. Out of 40 students

attending the seminar, 13 students left their details, of whom six turned up to a

subsequent meeting I had set up to discuss and brief the participants about the study

and to gain their written consent (copies of consent forms can be seen in Appendix D).

In addition, I chose this opportunity to conduct a reflexive preparatory exercise, which

gave me the chance to find out about the participants’ past experiences and their

understanding of the phenomena involved in the study. This also gave me the

opportunity to talk with them informally about their musical background and learning

journeys so far. The main study participant is introduced in Chapter 6. Further details of

the reflexive accounts of the pilot study participants can be seen in Chapter 4 and in

Appendix E.

Although more participants would have provided an opportunity to generate more data, I

decided that six participants at the pilot stage would allow for in-depth data collection

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with repeated interviews and video-recordings of the workshops and an opportunity to

trial and develop my research methods for the main study.

In the pilot study, three of the participants were female and three were male. In the main

study the participant was male. Participants’ number of years studying their instrument

ranged from five to fifteen years, demonstrating a range of experience of different

methods of teaching and learning and varying stages of development of performing

ability. In addition, participants originated from different countries and played a range of

instruments. The advantages of this range of experience are the potential opportunities

to gather rich data and to illuminate the phenomena from multiple perspectives. This

diversity lends depth to the data and is a valued aspect of interpretative

phenomenological research.

3.5 Data collecting methods

Methods of data collection for the study were: reflexive preparatory exercises, video-

recorded movement/music workshop, repeated semi-structured interview, unstructured

interview, informal conversation and video-assisted recall. These methods were chosen

because they enable access to the participants’ movement and experiences and

because they are congruent with the philosophical framework of the research paradigm

and methodology.

3.5.1 Reflexive preparatory exercise

As part of the process of constructing data sets participants were asked to complete two

reflective exercises: a written preparatory exercise and a personal background report.

These were used to help participants reflect on their past learning experiences related

to music performance and in particular to musical phrasing. These exercises were used

to encourage deeper exploration of the participants’ past experiences and to find out

their current understanding of the concepts ‘phrase’, ‘shaping’ and ‘musical phrasing’

(see Appendix E).

The preparatory exercise consisted of a mix of open-ended and closed questions that

participants were asked to complete in writing. The questions focused on performance

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because this was a more familiar/obvious context for critiquing how the participants

made musical phrasing choices and how well they thought they implemented those

choices. The aims of this exercise were threefold: first to establish the participant’s

understanding of the research phenomenon musical phrasing, implementing music

phrasing in performance and implementing phrasing choices through a Somatic

approach; second, to raise their awareness of these phenomena; and third to identify

areas for discussion in the interviews.

In the second exercise, participants were asked to write a brief account of their personal

experiences of significant events, mentors, friends, course and training which they had

experienced during their learning journey so far, and which may have influenced their

desire to be a performer and in particular their understanding and approach to musical

phrasing. The accounts were used to raise participants’ awareness of events that had

deepened or led to a change in the way they approached musical phrasing. In addition,

the accounts provided a greater understanding of the sources of knowledge that

participants drew upon in their daily practice as pre-professional musicians and

informed the design and delivery of the workshops by taking into account their study

interests.

3.5.2 The workshops: the pilot study

After the initial research briefing session, a convenient date was arranged with all the

participants to take part in the first workshop. I planned a series of seven workshops

over a six-month period. Video recordings of these workshops provided a means of

returning to the data during the analysis and interpretation stages and were utilized

during the video-assisted-recall, where the participants were encouraged to focus

directly on the experience as they lived it at the time and describe and comment on it in

detail. I decided to do a series of workshops rather than a single session so that I could

address ideas and concepts, have time to practice new skills and techniques, and

reflect both individually and with others on experiences in some depth. Each workshop

lasted two hours and was designed to introduce participants to a Somatic Movement

approach as a method of exploring and practising music performance techniques (in

particular, musical phrasing). All the workshops had several features in common. These

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drew on my experience of Laban Movement Analysis/Bartenieff Fundamentals

(LMA/BF), Skinner Releasing Technique (SRT), and Dalcroze Eurythmics. They were:

intended for small group and individual work;

designed for musicians studying in the same field (performance);

facilitated by me, an experienced teacher, dancer and professional pianist;

participatory, in that participants had the chance to influence the direction of the

workshop and to practise the technique and skills being explored;

informal, in that a good deal of discussion was encouraged; and

sequential, in that each workshop built on the previous one.

I chose to use a workshop as a method for gathering data because it gave me the

opportunity to create an intensive ‘educational’ experience in a short amount of time. I

wanted to introduce and explore musical performance techniques, encourage the

practice of Somatic Movement-based methods and spur participants to investigate them

further on their own. I wanted to create an environment in which participants could feel

safe to try out new methods and offer feedback within the group setting, helping to

create a sense of community or common purpose among them. I based the workshop

on model that I have been using for many years as a teacher, which is based on my

experience of LMA/BF and Dalcroze approaches to teaching and learning music

performance technique. This includes learning musical concepts through and with

movement and learning in the body to gain knowledge about how performers can create

relationships between themselves and their instrument and ways to combine technique

and expression through movement awareness. The main thing that made this research

different was the focus on exploring the participants’ experience of the Somatic work

and, in particular, the incorporation of the SRT work that I had learnt about with regard

to developing student autonomy, sensory awareness and the combination of re-uniting

technique and expression through kinaesthetic imagery and imaginative experience.

The originality of this work lies in its focus on the combination of functional and

expressive movement in playing the piano rather than on one or the other, or in only

looking into the physical benefits of Somatic Movement approaches such as the release

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of tension in the fingers, modifying seated posture at the instrument or the use of fixed

gestures to express certain feeling or moods.

The workshops were designed in three stages: planning, preparation and

implementation. At the planning stage, I considered how I wanted to guide the

participants through the experience. This helped me to decide what to do and how to do

it. I decided to plan a variety of movement/music exercises connected with musical

phrasing as well as to introduce the theoretical ideas of the Somatic Movement

approaches such as Dalcroze Eurhythmics, SRT and LMA/BF techniques.

In the preparation stage, I considered the type of space I would need and subsequently

booked a large music classroom that had a grand piano and space to move around in

comfortably. I wanted to create an informal environment in which the participants could

interact in a flexible and comfortable way. During the preparation stage, I also started to

think about the structure of the content of the workshops. In order to maintain flow I

used three distinct phases: introduction, core and closure. The introduction included

warm-up exercises or games drawn from Somatic Movement principles drawn from

LMA/BF, such as connecting with the breath. These gave the participants a chance to

prepare themselves for movement and a chance to interact with me, each other and the

surrounding space. Other exercises were Dalcroze-inspired and focused on exploring

musical concepts such as melody, texture and harmony in the music through

movement. Overall, exercises included whole-body warm-ups, breathing exercises and

different ways of travelling around the space such as in direct or indirect pathways and

with different movement qualities such as jagged, smooth, curved, angular which drew

on my experience of teaching LMA/BF. In the core phase, I presented movement

exercises that explored the main topic of musical phrasing. This phase included a

variety of Somatically-informed exercises with and without props such as balls, feathers,

Thera-Bands and wooden sticks (see Section 2.4 for a justification for the use of props).

These movement/music exercises included exploring the departures and arrivals

(beginnings and endings) of phrases, shaping phrases, and phrase junctures. For my

movement data collection, I decided to focus on the three main movement/music

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exercises, which I embedded into this section (see Section 4.2 for a detailed description

of these exercises). In the final phase of the workshop I gave the participants a chance

to reflect on what they had done by inviting them to comment on their experiences

informally. Figure 3.1 presents an overview of the workshop design.

Figure 3.1 Workshop outline: pilot study

During the final stage of designing the workshops, I considered how I was going to

implement and present the movement/music exercises. I decided to facilitate the

workshops rather than ask a colleague or co-researcher to deliver the exercises. This

gave me an opportunity to develop my practice as workshop facilitator and to reflect on

the process. Further, not without acknowledging issues of reliability of the study, it

allowed me to facilitate trust and confidence and to establish a rapport with the

participants that provided potentially deeper access to their worlds and thoughts. In this

research, the term facilitator refers to ‘a workshop leader who has the same level of

knowledge about both education and the subject matter as a teacher, but works with the

goal of having students take as much responsibility for their own learning experiences

as possible (Underhill 1999: 126). Taking on the role of facilitator rather than ‘tutor’ gave

me the opportunity to provoke exploration of the movement exercises rather than

instruct participants directly. This gave participants the opportunity to take charge of

their own learning and develop a sense of agency over how they wanted to move and

how they wanted express their ideas at their instruments. I took into account that

Introduction: Warm-up movement/music exercises

and games: setting the tone of the

workshop, preparing participants to

move safely and freely in the space

Core: Presentation of main movement/music

exercises that explore main research

topic of musical phrasing: movement

data collecting phase

Closure: Reflection: informal dialogue data collecting phase

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effective facilitation requires self-reflection and careful attention to the details of

interaction such as the language used as well as the content of the material. The pilot

study workshops provided an essential opportunity to try out the implementation of this

method – essential because not much guidance is given in the literature regarding this

method of data collection. As well as providing preliminary data, the workshops also

provided a chance for me to reflect on the process so far, which informed the refocusing

of the research questions and the restructuring and presentation of the workshops for

the main study.

3.5.2.1 The workshops: the main study

The rationale for using workshops as a data collecting method in the main study

remains the same as for the pilot study. However, the structure, content and

presentation of the workshops were modified to accommodate a shift in focus from

studying individual and group movement experiences of exploring musical phrasing in a

general way to studying an individual’s experience of applying a Somatic Movement

approach to implementing phrasing choices at the instrument. I decided to use only one

participant, a pianist, selected from the original list of potential volunteer participants for

the pilot study. I realized that working with only one participant could raise issues of

reliability. However, regarding the validity of the work it was important that I had the

opportunity to focus more deeply on the embodied experience of how musicians made

connections within themselves, their instruments and the physical and social

environment they found themselves in. In addition, it was important that I could focus

more tightly on individual experience, go deeper into that experience and explore in

finer detail how movement could be transformed in to music at the piano. Further, from

the pilot study, I had learnt that the workshops generated extensive amounts of data.

This prevented the depth of analysis, interpretation and the attribution of meaning that I

would have liked to have accomplished. As a result, I planned to deliver three

workshops rather than seven, which were to be video recorded, over a twelve-month

period. This timetable was chosen partly because of time restrictions of the participant

but also to give the participant time to try some of the exercises out during personal

practice time outside the research context as a means of deepening the experience.

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The three workshops focused on two contrasting pieces of music: Neil March’s

Diversions and the first movement of Beethoven’s Sonata in C Minor Op.10 No.1.

Workshops 1 and 2 focused on Diversions and Workshop 3, the Beethoven Sonata. In

each case the participant was given seven days to prepare the pieces for performance.

Two workshops were arranged to work on Diversions because the participant was

unfamiliar with this piece and asked to repeat the workshop after he had had more time

to learn to play the piece on the piano with greater accuracy. The Beethoven Sonata

was already part of the participant’s repertoire and therefore one workshop was

sufficient to address the movement/music exercises in a comfortable way for the

participant. As a way of allowing the participant to track his experience of the workshops

I devised a ‘before’ and ‘after’ scenario. I did this by dividing each workshop into three

parts.

In part one, the participant was asked to sketch his musical phrasing choices on the

score of the piece to be performed before playing the piece on the piano. In part two,

the movement/music exercises were carried out, following the same structure as the

pilot study outlined in Figure 3.1. In part three, the participant played the piece again

and was asked to re-sketch his phrasing choices, noting any changes, if any, he would

like to make. Each workshop was immediately followed by an interview, in which the

participant was encouraged to focus on the experience of taking part in the workshop

and describe it in detail. Further details regarding the content of the workshops can be

found in Chapter 6.

3.5.3 Interviews

In hermeneutic phenomenological research the interview serves very specific purposes.

First, it is used to explore and gather accounts of participants’ lived experiences.

Second, it is a means of developing an informal dialogue with the participant about the

meaning of an experience (van Manen 2007). This can be done through reflection with

the participant that allows them to tell their story in their own words.

There are various ways of conducting interviews, including structured, semi-structured

and unstructured formats. The different formats can be linked to the depth of the

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response sought (Robson 2002: 269). In the pilot study, a semi-structured interview

format was chosen, providing the interviewee with much more flexibility of response

than in a structured interview, where fixed questions are asked in a pre-decided order.

Although semi-structured interviews have pre-determined questions, the order can be

modified, wording can be changed and seemingly inappropriate questions can be left

out or additional ones added (Robson 2002: 270). Semi-structured interviews provide

richer data compared with structured interviews and allow participants freedom to

respond to questions and to narrate their experiences without being tied down to

specific answers (Morse and Field 1995). This feature helps interviewees feel

comfortable talking about their experiences. A further advantage at the pilot stage of the

investigation was that a semi-structured interview gave an opportunity to compare

across interviews because some of the questions are pre-determined. The key

questions helped to guide the amount of attention given to certain discussion topics,

which were selected after considering Smith and Osborn’s (2003) suggestion for

constructing an interview schedule using an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis

approach.36 Further details on this approach are given in Section 3.8.

In the main study, an unstructured interview format was chosen. This gave the

interviewee more freedom to say whatever they liked on the broad topic of their

experience of the workshops, with minimal prompting from the researcher (Miller and

Crabtree 1999). This type of interview has a collaborative conversational structure that

lends itself well to the task of reflecting on phenomenological meanings and, as such,

was a suitable format for urging the participant to reflect upon and discuss his

experience in greater depth than in a semi-structured interview (Langdridge 2007: 67;

Bresler 2010: 12). Unstructured interviews can be tricky to manage. There are no pre-

determined interview questions available to guide the conversation. Although initial

focus question were used, it is quite easy to go off topic, which inevitably raises

concerns about bias and reliability. Nevertheless, the unstructured interview has the

potential to provide rich and highly illuminating material (Robson 2002: 273).

36 See Appendix P for a list of the selected discussion topics and key questions asked

during the pilot study.

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3.5.4 Video-assisted recall

As part of the process of collecting the data sets in the main study, the participant was

asked to take part in a video-assisted recall interview to assist recall of their thoughts

and feelings about the experience of doing the music/movement exercises/tasks in the

workshops. In addition, participants were invited to reflect on what and how they did

things and what they were thinking about at the time – that is, what was in their

imagination.

Interpersonal process recall (IPR) is a qualitative video-assisted interview approach

used for professional development by practitioners such as counsellors, doctors,

managers, teachers, coaches and athletes to increase their awareness and

understanding of how they interact with others (Larsen, Flesaker and Stege 2008: 19). It

is also used as a method of learning and self-exploration (Allen 2004: 161). It was

initially developed as a systematic research method to study college students’ thought

processes during class discussions (Bloom 1954). It was developed by Norman Kagan

and his colleagues in the 1970s to facilitate therapy and counsellor training through

recall of videotaped interactions (Kagan 1980, 1984; Kagan and Kagan 1991). It is used

to access individuals’ thoughts and feelings about experiences as they occurred at the

time of the interaction under investigation.

As a process-focused interview method, IPR allows researchers to obtain insight into

interactions through observation and by directly asking the interviewee to comment

independently on interactions as they unfold. While watching a video of these

interactions, interviewees are asked by the researcher to describe their underlying

thoughts and feelings as they occurred during the interactions. A key feature of an IPR

interview is to focus interviewees on their thoughts and feelings as they remember

these having occurred during the session (or other event) rather than encouraging

critique or self-confrontation.

Using IPR, I was able to access the participants’ thoughts and feelings about their

experiences as they remembered them to have occurred in the music/movement

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workshops. Although I conducted semi-structured interviews in the pilot study and

unstructured interviews in the main study, IPR gave me an opportunity to explore

unspoken experiences in greater detail and to learn something new about their

experiences of the workshop: things participants had no time to say, things that did not

seem appropriate at the time, feelings, images, thoughts, sensations, fears and things

that got in the way of them responding in the way they wanted. IPR can be used in

many settings but for the purposes of my research I used the following process

(adapted from Allen 2004: 159–170):

The video recordings of all the workshops and post-workshop interviews were

used to conduct the IPR interview. I acted as the facilitator to the participants’

recall.

I invited the participants to play the video-recording in chronological order and to

press the pause button when anything at all occurs to them that they might like to

talk about regarding their experience at the time: any thought, feeling, sensation,

memory, idea.

When the participant paused the recording, I prompted their recall with questions

that helped to focus the feedback on thoughts and feelings they had at the time

and assisted and encouraged them to stay in the past tense. I used prompts

such as: What do you remember thinking at this point? How were you feeling

then? Do you recall any physical sensation? Do you recall any images,

sensations? If you could change what you were doing at this point, what would it

be? Did the setting affect you? Do you know what that was about? What was it

like to carve the shape of a phrase in the air with your hand?

I asked the participants to press ‘play’ when they were ready to move on until

they came to something else that triggered a response, at which point they

paused the recording again.

Before starting the recall, I introduced the IPR interview to the participants by letting

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them know that this was an opportunity for them to think about the original experience

more fully than there had been time to in the workshop and in the post-workshop

interview. I gave them the stop/start/pause button and invited them to pause and re-start

the recording whenever they wanted.

IPR gave the participants the opportunity to reflect on their experiences through re-

experiencing the workshops and interviews. Used in conjunction with my other data this

allowed me to enrich my analysis and interpretation of the data and to deepen my

understanding of the complexity of their experience as they told it in order to attribute

meaning to emerging themes.

3.6 The role of the researcher in data collection

During this research, I as the data collector was both a researcher and a postgraduate

student studying the same subject as my participants – music performance – in the

same institution. Being an insider helped to facilitate trust and confidence in the

researcher–participant relationship and allowed me to establish a rapport with the

participants early in the data collecting process. Insider opportunities gave me the

chance to use my pre-existing knowledge and experience base about the situation and

the research topic (Robson 2002: 535), which potentially provided greater access to the

participants’ world without having to constantly ask for clarification. However, I was

aware that this could be an issue regarding bias. Aware of this issue, I attempted to

maintain what van Manen (1997) refers to as hermeneutic alertness, which occurs in

situations where researchers step back to reflect on the meaning of situations rather

than accepting their preconceptions and interpretation at face value. As a result, I

viewed reflexivity as an important dimension in designing and implementing this

research. As a means of maintaining hermeneutic alertness, I used Langdridge’s

suggested series of questions to encourage a reflexive approach:

1) Why am I carrying out this study?

2) What do I hope to achieve with this research?

3) What is my relationship with the topic being investigated?

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4) Who am I, and how might I influence the research I am conducting?

5) How will my personal experience influence the analysis, interpretation and

meaning attribution?

6) How might the research process impact on the participants?

7) How might the findings impact on the participants?

Throughout the research, I sought opportunities for thoughtful reflection on the research

experience, and the relationships I had developed with my participants. I recognized the

way in which knowledge, in most qualitative approaches to research, is a co-

construction that reflects the choices and questions of both the researcher and the

participants (Langdridge 2007: 59). This was built into the research process and is

explicated in the account.

3.7 Ethical conduct of the research

Ethical approval for this research was obtained from Goldsmiths, University of London

Research Ethics Committee (see Appendix G). Ethical considerations raised by this

research were concerned with obtaining informed consent and permission to video-

/audio-record the participants’ voice, performance and participation in the workshops,

permission to use participants’ names and permission to use quotes or excerpts from

the video/audio recordings, and/or recordings of their voices, in part or in whole, in the

research report and subsequent digital and electronic copy to be held in the university’s

electronic database and available to the academic research community. Informed

consent is defined as ‘the voluntary and revocable agreement of a competent individual

to participate in a research procedure, based on an adequate understanding of its

nature, purpose and implications’ (Sim 1986: 584). The definition of informed consent

can be broken down into four elements: the provision of adequate information,

understanding of the information, the ability of participants to make rational decisions

and the absence of coercion.

All participants were provided with information sheets (see Appendix D) detailing the

aims of the research and the research process. These information sheets were provided

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to potential participants after the taster workshop and again at the preliminary briefing

for people who were interested in taking part. All potential participants were given the

opportunity to ask questions and were aware that if they did decide to participate that

they could withdraw at any time without negative consequences. Written consent was

obtained from each volunteer prior to commencement of the data collection (see

Appendix G) and further permission was obtained from each volunteer to audio-/video-

record their participation in the workshops and interviews, and a signed release form

was obtained to use their names and to use quotes from the interviews, the video

recording, screen shots/photographs, in part or in whole in the research report and any

subsequent publication (see Appendix H).

Maintaining participants’ confidentiality is often a major ethical concern of interpretive

research because of the personal nature of the research, the type of questions the

participants are asked and the tasks they are asked to do, although there are

exceptions and confidentiality and anonymity may not always be appropriate (Robson

2002: 67). Given the visual nature of this research and that the participants were putting

extra effort and time into taking part in the movement/music workshops it seemed

appropriate in this case to present visual displays of the data so that the reader can, in

parallel with the researcher, draw warranted conclusions (Robson 2002: 508). Although

the study involved participants in doing things that they might not otherwise do, the

degree of emotional involvement was likely to be minimal. I did consider using

pseudonyms and blurring the faces but then participants could also be identified by

other factors such as the clothes they wore or idiosyncratic gestures they made. In

addition, the setting could possibly be recognized. While further changes could have

been made to disguise this they may have distanced my research report from the reality

it is trying to describe and understand. As a way of protecting participants from any

potential ‘harm’ or embarrassment I ensured that the reporting of the study was

thoughtful and that no sensitive personal data was disclosed. I took care to treat the

participants with respect and made it clear that they were free to withdraw at any point

and to request that any video/audio they preferred I did not use in the research report

was deleted. Furthermore, there were no existing power relations between me and the

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participants that could be perceived as coercive.

3.8 Data analysis methods

In keeping with the methodology used in this research, I developed data analysis

methods from phenomenological and hermeneutic principles and from guidelines in the

literature regarding systematic and useful ways of analysing qualitative data. I used two

methods to analyse the data: Kestenberg Movement Profiling (KMP) (Kestenberg-

Amighi, Loman, Lewis and Sossin 1999) and Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis

(IPA) (Smith, Flowers and Larkin 2009). I used KMP to analyse the video and audio

data and Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) to analyse the interview data.

This gave me an opportunity explore participants’ movement experiences and reflective

comments about their experiences.

KMP is a system of movement analysis that is used to understand development,

temperament, personality, body movement skills and how we interact with others. It was

developed using Laban-based methods and is often used in Dance Movement Therapy

(DMT) and child development research. Reflecting their essentially developmental and

psychological interests, Kestenberg and her colleagues elaborated upon the Laban

system (LMA) so that it reflected the ways in which movement patterns evolve within the

context of development. In order to facilitate the use of this new profile for psychological

assessment they sought to highlight the correspondences they discovered between

movement qualities and Anna Freud’s developmental scheme.37 Based on long-term

movement observation of children, clinical practice and research, Kestenberg and the

study group differentiated Efforts, described by Laban into four movement clusters38:

37 This method of movement analysis is clearly questionable as it deals with subjective analysis of the

experience of human movement. There were other methods I considered using such as Motion capture,

LMA and Warren Lamb’s Movement Pattern Analysis (Lamb and Watson 1979), which draws on the

innovation of Laban and Lawrence (Laban and Lawrence (1947), used mainly in senior-management

consulting and for personal development. However, KMP seemed the most appropriate method to gain

insight into the internal experience of movement.

38 Efforts in this context refer to what Laban described as the availability of a full range of efforts in a

person’s movement repertoire that indicates that a person is able to effectively cope with environmental

challenges. Laban identified six effort elements with which we content with the forces of space, weight

and time. These are: direct, flexible, strong and light, and quick and sustained. These have been modified

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tension flow rhythms (which can be interpreted to reflect unconscious needs),

tension flow attributes (which can be interpreted to reflect temperament and

affects),

pre-efforts (which can be interpreted to reflect immature ways of coping often

used in learning and defensive behaviours), and

efforts used in coping with space, weight, and time elements.

Similarly they differentiated shape flow (movement that represents a relationship of the

body to itself) into:

bipolar shape flow (movements which can be interpreted to reflect self-feelings)

and

unipolar shape flow (which can be interpreted to involve responses to specific

stimuli).

Kestenberg’s study group added movement qualities that relate to how we move and

gesticulate in the kinaesphere around us (shape flow design: relates to movements that

either move away from the body or toward the body expressing relatedness to self,

others and the environment) and developed the developmental and psychological

understanding of shaping in directions (used in defence and learning) and shaping in

by Kestenberg and associates under the guidance of Warren Lamb to become: direct, indirect, strength,

lightness, acceleration and deceleration. People use effort elements in many every day movements

(Laban and Lawrence (1947) but Efforts are most clearly seen in exertions connected with physical work,

sports and performance arts: swinging a hammer, slashing wheat, wringing out clothes, gliding over ice,

dancing airily or playing the piano lightly. Laban pointed out that cognitive tasks also draw upon the use of

Efforts. This is particularly evident in his description of inner attitudes. For example, Laban suggested that

we can think of the effort element of strength as including the attitude of determination and the effort

element of directness to encompass direct attention (Laban 1950/2011). He suggested that Efforts are

composed of three parts: 1) the mechanical aspects of movements, 2) the movement sensations that

accompany it, and 3) the inner attitude that instigated it or follows from it (Laban ibid.). Further, he

suggested that a person will be more successful at accomplishing a task and solving problems if they are

adept at combining the appropriate combination of effort elements. See Kestenberg-Amighi et al. (1999:

89-108) for further discussion on how KMP has modified some of Laban’s terminology and

conceptualizations regarding Efforts.

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planes (used in complex relationships) (Kestenberg-Amighi, Loman, Lewin and Sossin

1999: 139).39 Put very simply, KMP provides a survey of movement patterns that can be

linked to learning processes and can provide a framework for interpreting and attributing

meaning to human movement patterns (Allison 1999: 332).

As mentioned, I considered using other methods of movement analysis but I decided to

use KMP as it offered promising techniques that might be applied to gaining insight into

the internal experience of movement from the video data within a music performance

learning context. From a musical performance perspective, Shape Flow Design was

particularly relevant as it allowed me to observe and analyse the movements and

movement experience of the individual participants that expressed relatedness to the

self, others and the environment – how they ‘enacted’ in the surroundings they found

themselves in. This was significant, as it gave me the chance analyse non-verbal data

that illuminated the quality of the movement/s that took place between the participants

and the relationship between the movements they made. This allowed me to begin to

attribute meaning to the ways they moved as they explored their musical phrasing ideas

and implemented their intentions within a movement context (Johnson 2007). I decided

to focus on the Shaping category because it asks questions about what forms the body

makes. Is the shape changing in relation to self or in relation to the environment? How

is the Shape changing – what is the major quality or element which is influencing the

process of change? In this way, this particular category focuses on the change process

which can be related to the learning process. More specifically. This category can be

related to musical phrasing, in that Shape Flow relates to the basic change in the body’s

for which happens in the process of breathing. Further, modes of these shape changes

can reveal an inner attitude about changing the form of the body – whether the shape

change is self-oriented environment-orientated. This gave me the opportunity to explore

how participants shifted or shared the core of experience with others participants in the

group and examine the structure or ‘directedness’ of their experience. That is, how the

participants’ shifted from the ‘what’ of experience to the ‘why’ and then to an awareness

39 See Laban (1950/2011) and Hackney (2002: 218–223) for further discussion of Effort and Shape Flow.

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of self as an embodied agent in the construction of experience.40

Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) is an experiential qualitative approach

to research in psychology, health and social sciences developed relatively recently by

Jonathan Smith. Its primary concern is the account of the lived experience of the

participant, and the meaning the participant makes of that lived experience (Smith,

Flowers and Larkin 2009: 80). There are many approaches to analysing qualitative

interview data. However, the immersive approach of IPA gave me the opportunity to

analyse participants’ accounts of their experiences in a less structured and more

interpretive way than other approaches such as a template approach, which uses pre-

determined key codes, or a quasi-statistical approach in which word or phrase

frequencies are used to determine the relative importance of terms and concepts

(Robson 2002: 458). In addition, IPA gave me the chance to reflectively engage with the

participants’ accounts. Further, the analysis process offers a systematic guide which

facilitates rather than dictates the stages of an analysis. The stages of data analysis

developed for this research are shown in Figure 3.2.

In the first step of the IPA analysis process I concentrated on reading and re-reading the

original interview transcripts. As I read I listened to the voice of my participants via the

audio recording, which helped me interpret my analysis and keep my participant’s voice

at the centre of the analysis. This helped me enter my participant’s world and

understand issues embedded within their experiences. During the initial noting step I

began to note anything of interest in the transcript. This enabled me to familiarize myself

with the transcript and identify ways in which my participants talked about, understood

and thought about an issue. This is what Smith, Flowers and Larkin call a ‘free textual

analysis’ in that ‘there are no rules about what is commented upon’ and the aim is ‘to

produce a detailed set of notes and comments on the data’ (Smith, Flowers and Larkin

2009: 83). I tended to give attention to parts of the transcript that had a clear

phenomenological focus and described experiences that seemed to stand out for my

40 For an illustrated overview of the stages of the movement data analysis developed for this research

see Chapter 4.

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participants. To help me make sense of these experiences I used three discrete

processes to break down my exploratory comments: descriptive comments which

focused on describing what my participants had said about things that seemed to matter

to them, linguistic comments that examined the language used by my participants, and

conceptual comments which gave me the opportunity to ask questions about what my

participants said and start to think more deeply about what they might mean by what

they said. In addition I used a strategy of deconstruction to de-contextualize

participants’ words and meanings by taking a paragraph and reading it backwards, a

sentence at a time, to get a feel for the particular use of the words (see Chapter 5,

Section 5.2 for examples of how I engaged with this initial note-writing phase).

Figure 3.2 The stages of analysis for a single case (Smith, Flowers and Larkin 2009: 82)

The third step involved developing emergent themes. In looking for emergent themes I

Stages of data analysis developed for this research

1. Immersion: reading and re-reading

2. Initial noting

Descriptive

Linguistic

Conceptual

Deconstruction

3. Developing emergent themes

Distillation

Interpretation

4. Searching for connections across emergent themes

Abstraction

Bringing it together

5. Moving to the next case

6. Searching for connections across participants’ themes: illumination and illustration;

linking to the literature

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attempted to reduce the detail by working with my initial notes rather than the transcript.

I tried to analyse my exploratory notes at the same time as keeping in mind the parts of

the transcript that seemed to be significant to each participant. This represented a level

of interpretation and started to take me away from my participant’s experience towards

how I could make sense of their experience. The main task at this point was to distil and

capture the essence of the whole transcript. The next step involved charting how I

thought the themes were connected. Figure 3.2 presents my organization of

overarching themes for one participant. Here I was looking for a way of drawing the

emergent themes together that allowed me to highlight the most significant aspects of

my participants’ accounts in light of the research questions. Smith, Flowers and Larkin

give some ideas of how this might be done but stress that there are no prescriptive rules

or processes (2009: 96). I used the idea of Abstraction, suggested by Smith, Flowers

and Larkin, which allowed me to develop a sense of what they call ‘super-ordinate’

themes. I call them overarching themes as this seems to be more descriptive. This

involves putting similar themes together and giving them a name as a cluster. For

example, if we look at Mercedes’ extract (see Chapter 5, Section 5.2, extract 5) there is

a series of themes around the notion of resistance: ‘unable to move naturally’, ‘feeling

like a robot’ and questioning her identity as a musician’. I brought these together under

the overarching theme title of ‘Unresponsive Movement’. Figure 3.2 shows how I

brought together the emergent themes of Mercedes’ account. I then repeated the whole

process with the next participant’s transcript. I was aware that each case should be

treated individually in keeping with the idiographic nature of IPA, and that I should allow

new themes to emerge.

The final step involved looking for patterns across the participants’ accounts by seeking

how one participant’s theme helped to enlighten that of a different participant. This led

to some rearranging of themes and helped me to move onto a more theoretical level as

I began to realize that individual participants’ themes also revealed more general

concepts that could be shared across the participants’ accounts. I presented the final

results of this process in a table of themes for the group – see Figure 4.3. Here the

individual overarching themes are layered within the main connecting themes across

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the participants’ accounts.

I chose Smith, Flowers and Larkin’s (2009: 81) method because it suggests that the

guidelines for the analysis can be adapted if the data requires it and that the process is

an approach to ways of thinking about and seeing the data as well as doing something

with it. Additionally, I adopted their commitment to treating each case individually at the

exploratory stages, developing links and connections, and making comparisons within

the same case rather than applying pre-determined codes across case studies. This

gives me the opportunity to attempt to immerse myself in trying to understand my

participant’s experiences and to try to engage on a deeper level with the data before

searching for connections across emergent themes that inform the questions in my

main study.

The next chapter begins the analysis of the movement data, which was video recorded

during the pilot study workshops.

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Chapter 4: Moving musicians: a pilot study

... it seems there is a natural way of moving in response to certain music, responding to

in this case music or certain sounds as if I’m able to follow or go with the natural flow. I

think it is more exciting as a performer. I think everything is already inside – it’s a matter

of allowing the body to respond, the body already knows what to do ... (a participant)

4.1 Introduction

This chapter includes the analysis of the movement data gathered from the series of

video-recorded pilot study music/movement workshops (see Figure 3.1 for workshop

outline). The specific Somatic Movement/music exercises were inspired by Dalcroze

and LMA/BF and SRT techniques and focus on exploring, implementing and

communicating musical phrasing ideas and choices away from and at the instrument.

Six undergraduate music performance students in their first year of study in western

classical music performance took part in the pilot study. They came from varied musical

backgrounds but they were all motivated to become professional musicians in the

future.

4.2 The movement/music exercises

During the data collection for this pilot study, my intention was to observe, describe,

analyse and interpret how individual performers experienced three aspects of musical

phrasing, namely identifying points of departure and arrival (beginnings and endings),

shaping phrases and exploring different kinds of phrase juncture through three specific

movement/music exercises. I facilitated the workshops and played the piano for these

particular exercises, as at this stage I was interested in participants’ engagement and

experience of the Somatic Movement explorations. In addition, I facilitated a warm-up

with kinaesthetic activities beforehand, which focused on exploring LMA/BF inspired

Shape Qualities. These included exploration of Opening/Closing, which allowed

participants to feel more specifically ‘toward where’ their movement was going and

where the shape of their body was changing. It gave them to opportunity to sense the

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spatial pull which was nuancing the expressive quality of their movements. The warm-

up also included exploration of the spatial pulls as related to LMA/BF to a Dimensional

matrix in space (Hackney 2002: 222): Rising/Sinking, Advancing/Retreating and

Spreading/Enclosing. These warm-up movement explorations helped prepare the

students to work in a more sensorial/embodied way with Shape Flow, in particular with

regard to Carving with Shape Flow Support and the breath as it related to the shaping of

musical phrasing. In this way, participants were able to experience the feeling of

changing shape from within as an expressive process. For example, Spreading is

different from simply arriving at the end of a phrase. Awareness of this sort can be

particularly important for music students who seem to get stuck in making the ‘correct’

‘sound’ but are not connecting internally to enjoy the forming process itself. After

spending time exploring shape qualities the core exercises were introduced. These

focused on Dalcroze-inspired methods, which use objects or props to enhance

kinaesthetic awareness of the connection with the body, others and the surrounding

environment. On reflection, it would have been good to ask the participants to play the

piano for each other so that movement pathways and shape qualities made to different

phrasing choices in the music could have been compared and the social interaction of

the participants could have been observed more closely. This would have allowed

further experience of the discovery of personal meaning association between the self,

others, the environment and their instruments.

The exercises were as follows:

Movement/Music Exercise 1: identifying phrase departures and arrivals

Participants were asked to show the location of the departure and arrival of a

musical phrase by passing a light football (in the main study I substituted the

football for a tennis ball as I found this was easier for the participants to handle)

from one hand to the other. Participants were asked to do this twice: once alone

and once passing the ball with a partner. The music used was Erik Satie’s

Gnossienne No. 1 (1893/1913).

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Movement/Music Exercise 2: shaping phrase

Participants were asked to move a light football from one point in space to

another by shaping the pathway between the points in response to the phrasing

choices heard in the music. Participants were asked to imagine that the ball was

the music and to freely interpret their movement response to shaping features

such as tempo fluctuation, rhythmic flow, stillness, dynamics and emphasis. The

music used was Eric Satie’s Gnossienne No.1 and Neil March’s Diversions

(2010).

Movement/Music Exercise 3: exploring phrase junctures

Participants worked with a partner and were asked to take the light football from

their partner at the phrase junctures. They were asked to listen to the way the

phrases transitioned and find a way of taking the ball from their partner in a

similar way. For example, if there was an overlap then both participants might

find a way of moving together with the ball together until the subsequent phrase

finally started a new journey. In addition, this exercise included the use of other

materials to explore moving the whole phrase from one juncture to the next. In

this case, Thera-Bands and one metre doweling sticks were used. The wooden

doweling was held between the forefingers of each participant as they stood

facing each other. The aim of the exercise was for one participant (A) to initiate

the departure of the phrase by pressing the doweling towards the other

participant shaping the movement of the phrase until the other participant (B) felt

the phrase was approaching its arrival, at which stage participant (B) responded

by gently pressing the dowel back in the direction of participant (A). The purpose

of this exercise was to facilitate the feeling of shape and flow of the phrase and

the moment of transition from one phrase to the next. The Thera-Bands were

held by each participant and the same process was followed as above but in this

case the Thera-Band was pulled away by one participant to initiate the departure

of the phrase. The music used was Diversions.

At this pilot stage of the research, I wanted to keep the observations general and to try

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out the movement/music exercises to see where improvements could be made to the

design, content and presentation of the workshops. Therefore I did not restrict myself to

working with participants who played the same musical instrument. I could have chosen

to focus on one participant, even at this stage, but finding music students willing to

volunteer their time and energy in pilot studies is rather difficult, so I left that for the main

study. New ideas emerged from the pilot study, which changed the focus of the main

study, especially regarding the honing of the movement/music exercises and the

language I used to deliver them.

The pilot study turned out to be a significant part of the research in its own right as well

as informing the main study. The rest of this chapter reports and discusses the

movement data collected in the pilot study and finally explains how I reworked and

refocused my initial research questions for the main study. Given the scope and scale of

this research project as a whole, I decided to focus on reporting the findings from the

movement data from only one of the participants. On reflection, fewer workshops at the

pilot stage would have given me an opportunity to present more of the movement work

for each participant. That said, I have included a full analysis and interpretation of the

post-workshop interviews of all the participants. This provided me with invaluable data

and informed the reshaping of the main study regarding the type of interview I chose to

do and the way I conducted the video-assisted recall sessions.41

4.3 Analysis of the movement data

As mentioned in Chapter 3, Section 3.8, I used the KMP Shape Flow Design category to

analyse and interpret the movement data. Shape Flow Design is primarily concerned

with observing and analysing the mover’s interaction with his/her surrounding personal

space towards and away from the body. The spatial movement pathways observed are

said to reflect the individual’s style of relating and relatedness to self (how we treat

ourselves), others (how we treat others), things (how we interact with objects in space)

and the environment (how we bridge space). Here, I was concerned with observing

41 Further details of the choice of music used in the workshops and the participants’ background told

through their reflexive accounts can be found in Appendix E.

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participants’ movement spatial pathways in response to musical phrasing choices.

Fundamentally, the KMP Shape Flow Design category allowed me to analyse three

ways participants presented their movement pathways towards and away from the

body. First is the proximity of their movement pathways towards and away from the

body (near, intermediate and far from the body); second, the basic design of their

spatial pathways in terms of centrifugal movements (opening/closing) and centripetal

movements (closing/opening); and third, the basic design of their spatial pathway in

terms of specific design elements (how they shaped their pathway in space). The

specific design elements are:

looping (movements that follow circuitous pathways);

linear (movements that follow straight pathways);

high/low amplitude (refers to the degree of the excursion of the centrifugal or

centripetal movement); and

angular/rounded reversals (refers to the way in which movements change

direction. The change in direction may be sharp and angular or rounded and

smooth). (Kestenberg-Amighi, Loman, Lewis and Sossin 1999: 139–142)42

4.4 Example of movement data analysis: Joey

Analysing an example from one of the participant’s engagement with the

movement/music exercises allowed me to observe how the mover, in this case Joey,

moved his body part relationships self-to-self. It also allowed me to explore how he used

Shape Flow to create a sensation that his movement was not about making something

happen in the environment, but was about the him sensing his own body as he was with

himself or in his world. One example of this is Joey’s adjustment to get comfortable

before the exercise begins.

The following examples (Figures. 4.1 and 4.2), taken from the video-recording (all

42 A brief overview of the concerns of the KMP Shape Flow Design category as illustrated by the

participants may be found in Appendix I.

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images 12 frames per second) of the music/movement exercise 1 with Joey, showed his

movement with the ball to the opening phrase of the music (Satie’s Gnossienne No.1 –

see Appendix H for score).

Figure 4.1 Joey preparing to move to the music

The images in Figure 4.1 show Joey preparing to start to move to the music. Here, there

was an expectation that the music was just about to begin and it seemed important to

him to get a feel for the ball, to get comfortable, tracing/carving a curved line smoothly in

an upward direction quite near to his body (intermediate reach) moving it slightly further

away from his body in a centrifugal fashion (movements directed away from one’s own

body) in a downward direction before making a small smooth circular reversal (rounded

reversal) with the ball then coming to a momentary stillness just as I start to play the

music on the piano.

In addition to the shape qualities of movement Joey used, I also observed that he

moved slightly backwards as he traced/carved a curved pathway in an upward direction

leaning slightly more forward as he started to move the ball smoothly in a downward

direction with his head seeming to lead the movement as it moved down and forward

slightly and his directional position changed ever so slightly from a diagonal position to a

front facing one. This direction movement showed a goal-orientated shape change that

seemed to create a bridge with the surrounding environment, for example, in changing

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his shape in order to go out to someone else or the world. From this position, Joey

continued to move with the ball smoothly across his body in a centripetal fashion

(movements directed towards one’s own body) to show the departure of the first phrase

of the music. Figure 4.2 shows how he continued to shape the space around him:

carving the space, directing the location and changing his body part relationship with the

ball as he responded to the phrasing choices he heard in the music.

Figure 4.2 uses stop-motion photos to show more clearly how Joey shaped his

movement with the ball in space from moment to moment. (This sequences of images is

inspired by the work of English photographer Eduard Muybridge (1830–1904), important

for his pioneering work in photographic studies of motion.) This particular movement is

relevant as it may link to Joey’s experience of the interaction of his Shape Flow Design

qualities and his ability to be in touch with his ‘inner’ world, his directional choice (ability

to contact the world outside of himself and accomplish specific tasks) and how he

interacts with his surrounding environment. This was an important stage in the research

as it gave me the opportunity to explore how, as a music performer, one might explore

how movement experience is transformed through the embodied agency of self-

connection, interaction with others and through the surrounding space with which we

co-enact musical worlds. As a way of clarifying this process, I give detailed analysis of

the ball work of Joey and offer an interpretation of his movement with the ball to open

up possibilities of what this could mean in terms of embodied musical experience,

movement and learning.

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Figure 4.2 Joey shaping in space around him as he moves with the ball to the first phrase of

Gnossienne No.1 by Erik Satie

Joey began with the ball in his right hand, slightly away from his body. He showed the

departure of the phrase by smoothly looping the ball in a centrifugal manner. Continuing

to loop the ball he drew it nearer to his body in a seemingly awkward twisted movement

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led by his wrist. Placing both hands on the ball he drew it close to his torso, smoothly

rolling it between his hands as he started to move it upwards in a centrifugal fashion

further and further away from his body until he placed it in front of his face. Moving the

ball smoothly with a change of direction, he extended his arms as though he was

reaching out for something and leant forward. Changing the direction of the ball he

moved it downwards, tracing a twisted pathway far away from his body and curving his

head and neck to show an inner connection with his movement with the ball. Drawing

the ball closer to his legs just above his knees he continued to smoothly lower the ball

with both hands, bringing it closer to his knees then his lower shin and then back again

to his knees as he placed the ball on his shins and came to a stillness – his body deeply

curved, the ball gently but firmly clasped in both hands.

In order to attribute meaning to the movement data, I considered which movement

aspects of Shape Flow Design Joey used and how he used them in response to the

music (See Figure 4.3)

Joey’s use of surrounding space (near, intermediate, reach).

Figure 4.3 Diagram showing Joey's reach space patterns to the first two phrases of Satie's

Gnossienne No. 1

Here we can see how Joey began very close to his body. He seemed to elongate the

departure of the phrase with a slight reaching out before closing in to prepare for an

extended journey through his intermediate space into far reach briefly, before returning

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to intermediate space to signify the arrival of the phrase. The elongated curve-shaped

trajectory that he made could to relate to the relatively quick build-up of tension in the

music in the second half of the first phrase and the slow unfolding or release of tension

in the second phrase.

Joey’s basic design of spatial pathways of centrifugal or centripetal movement.

Figure 4.4 Diagram showing Joey's spatial pathways patterns to the first two phrases of Satie's

Gnossienne No. 1

Figure 4.5 Diagram showing a condensed version of Joey's Spatial Pathways patterns to the first

two phrases of Satie's Gnossienne No. 1

In Figures 4.4 and 4.5, I considered the shape qualities of opening/closing of Joey’s

movement with the ball to the music. His continuous interchange between moving away

from and towards his body with occasional moments of stability seemed to suggest an

anticipatory kinaesthetic experience of the upbeat, downbeat, period of motion and

upbeat aspects of the first two phrases of the music. For example, his centrifugal

movements in images 1 and 2 seemed to show the preparation of the downbeat in

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image 3 followed by a period of motion and stability he showed in his centripetal

movements in images 4–7, and image 20 seemed to show the anticipation of the upbeat

into the next phrase.

Joey’s use of Specific Design Factors:

Looping/linear.

High/low amplitude.

Angular/rounded reversals.

Figure 4.6 Diagram showing Joey’s use of specific design factors to the first two phrases of

Satie's Gnossienne No.1

Figure 4.6 shows Joey’s use of a mixture of linear and looping movement qualities. He

seemed to slightly favour moving in a linear way, which might suggest a relationship to

the repetitive nature of the harmonic and rhythmic ostinato pattern of the bass part of

the music which acts almost like a drone or a pedal note. On the other hand, his looping

movements might suggest a relationship to the cyclical nature of this recurring idea. The

difference between Joey’s use of low and high amplitude movements is quite clear. He

predominantly used low amplitude movements, which seemed to suggest a relationship

to the narrow pitch range of the melody and perhaps the introverted yet enigmatic

character of the piece. He changed the direction of his spatial pathway five times. This

could correspond to his relationship with the change in direction of the melody, which

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also changes five times. His movement seems not so much to map the direction of the

melody at this point as going up or down but the experience of the quality of the

movement of the music as either rounded or angular.

4.5 From movement to music to movement

Joey’s Shape Flow Design movement choices are the main topic of discussion in this

section. These particular choices emerged out of the movement/music exercises

already mentioned in this section, and further analysis helped to find relationships

between the movement choices and musical phrasing choices implemented in the

opening of Satie’s Gnossienne No.1. By emphasizing the relationship between the

specific spatial patterns of movement Joey used to relate to the musical phrasing and

an analysis of the music insight into the interaction between his movement patterning

and the musical phrasing choices made. However, before I do this, the reader may wish

to go to Appendix K, which shows an analysis of the opening of Gnossienne No. 1 using

Cone’s (1968: 25–31) concept of phrasing. I used this to inform the musical phrasing

choices and it also provided a means of basing my interpretation on existing musical

phrasing theory.

The example given in Appendix J explores how Joey moved and the movement choices

he made during a performance of the opening of Satie’s Gnossienne No. 1. My process

in interpreting his movements and the relationship with the musical material was first to

watch the video again and again to see what struck me and what questions came to

mind, then to try to relate Joey’s Shape Flow Design movement patterns to the music in

terms of the KMP Space Flow Design category and determine what factors and which

moments seemed particularly significant to him, and finally to see what this interaction

might infer with regard to addressing the initial research questions.

In term of reflecting on the research process so far, my first viewing of the video

recording of the workshop produced the following notes and questions:

Joey seems to be relaxed and uninhibited in front of the camera; there seems to

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be some confusion about when to start; did I contribute to that confusion? How?

This could have been as a result of my facilitation of the exercises or/and my

playing or that Joey was learning something new, which often causes a sense of

discomfort or unease.

Joey appears to be concentrating very intensely; is he listening to himself as he

moves to the music or is he able to listen to my performance too?

What kind of interaction is going on? Self-movement, movement with the ball,

movement in space.

How is he making sense of the musical events in the music? Conscious reflective

development.

How is he relating to the experience?

How is relating to an awareness of self as an active embodied agent in the

experience?

How is he relating to the music?

My initial notes focused on Joey’s engagement with the music and how he appeared to

make sense of the experience. The interpretation offered above goes some way to

addressing my questions and changed some of my initial analysis of Joey’s movement

patterns. For example, I used the term ‘rounded reversal’ to describe Joey’s movement

before I had analysed the music, whereas after my analysis and having looked at the

video data, I noticed that this was more of an outward/inward type of looping movement.

Joey seemed very attentive throughout the exercise and I could see his use of

movements away from and towards the body quite clearly. For example, when he

moved the ball vertically in front of his face, gradually getting further away from his body

and flicking his fingers away from the ball, he seemed to make a connection with the co-

creative relationship with others involved in the workshop. His predominant use of a

linear pathway in near-to-intermediate reach in this section seemed to echo the limited

melodic and harmonic movement of the music, yet he picked up moments of interest in

the melody by making small jerky movements in his hands and the continuous rhythmic

impulse of the left hand accompaniment by keeping the ball moving in a continuous

manner. This also seemed to resonate with a comment he made in the follow-up

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interview when he was talked about the transferability of the movement experience to

his personal music making activities of performing and composing:

… because of the structure and the ideas for improvising using the ball and the movement framework we used with the ascending and descending, advancing and retreating, enclosing and spreading this gives me a very natural linear progression for thinking about my improvisation I think and it is certainly something I will consider using rather than just harmonic or melodic ideas or frameworks. (Joey: from informal dialogue during the first workshop)

4.6 Summary

Using the KMP framework of movement analysis helped me to find ways of analysing,

interpreting and attributing meaning to musicians’ experiences of a body movement

approach to exploring musical phrasing away from the instrument. In addition, I was

able to consider participants’ movement responses and explore the relationships

between the way individual participant’s moved and the performance of musical

phrasing choices. This included looking at the responses more closely and describing

the relationship of spatial movement pathways away from and towards the body. But

what can this mean for the participants? Due to the scope of the study, I focused on one

participant’s movement experience: Joey. Analysing Joey’s movements suggested that

he attached importance to the way that he listened to his body movements and how he

related what he heard in the music with regard to musical phrasing choices. For

instance, the way he changed direction and carved pathways through space; the way

he bridged space either in a linear or circuitous manner; the way he initiated pathways

by selecting a starting point for a movement that moves intuitively with intention towards

a particular goal and where, along the way, he explored musical events through his

movement involving the creative interaction of expressive devices such as slowing

down and speeding up, lengthening and shortening note values, agogic nuance, the

multi-directional flow of the shape of the phrase and the spatial trajectory.

Taking this idea, I suggest that a sense of movement or bodily orientation in space is a

central aspect of a musician’s experience of performing a musical phrase. In this way,

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the taken-for-granted theories of musical phrasing may be extended beyond the

established analytical score-based perspectives through a reflexive open-ended

exploration of movement possibilities. Conscious experience of using movement/music

exercises to explore musical phrasing ideas may allow a performer to imagine and feel

the intended outcome of musical choices in terms of kinaesthetic images even before

they make a sound. Looking further into this, questions that arise include: How can a

performer’s conscious awareness of the way she moves in combination with

kinaesthetic imagery of the movement qualities experiences as their musical phrasing

choices be translated into sound at the instrument? What does this mean? And how can

this process be developed?

Picking up the discussion from Chapter 2, Johnson’s notion of Image Schemata as

basic structures of sensorimotor experience (Johnson 2007: 136) is one way of

exploring how a performer can grasp a musical performance concept as a kinaesthetic

image. If we assume that a musical concept that is understood as a kinaesthetic image

can be considered to have origins in and possess similar qualities to those of body

movement patterns, then we can say that a performer may draw on their awareness of

their individual movement patterns to enhance their imagery experience.

At this stage, it seems that exploring movement patterns through a Somatic approach to

music performance can play a role in musical performance learning processes and help

to provide a more secure bridge between performers’ thought and resulting action – a

process of ‘Enaction’. Using a Somatically-informed approach, the physical and

cognitive preparation which accompanies the learning process can be practised to

provide a setting conducive to getting the ‘feel’ of the movement needed to accomplish

musical phrasing choices – such as varying tempo or dynamics to emphasize particular

moments. It might be that once they have performed a movement away from their

instruments that enables them to implement a musical phrasing choice securely and

clearly, musicians can recall or remember what it feels like kinaesthetically to do the

movement. Such an experience may help to identify a set of aims and feelings that

contribute to re-learning of the movement or un-doing unhelpful movement habits. The

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next chapter analyses excerpts from the pilot study post-workshop interviews and gives

some examples of participants’ direct experiences of exploring musical phrasing ideas

and choices through a Somatic Movement approach and in particular their experiences

of the individual movement/music exercises in the workshops and how they made

sense of the experience.

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Chapter 5: Interviews after movement/music

workshop: analysis

I just felt a connection with it … it’s difficult to explain … (long pause) … the movement ... it seemed to be choreographed already in my body … it felt very natural and I didn’t need to think where am I going with this it just happened. (Joey)

5.1 Introduction

In this chapter, I present the post movement/music workshop interviews from the pilot

study. Here I analysed and interpreted what the participants said about their experience

of the movement/music workshops and the individual movement/music exercises. I then

looked for patterns of emerging themes followed by identifying connecting themes

across the participants’ responses. The interview schedule can be found in Appendix P;

for details regarding the stages of analysis developed for this research project see

Chapter 3. As this was a pilot study, I chose only to present the first two interviews by

showing the complete process and stages of analysis in tabular form using extracts

from the full transcript. The rest of the interviews I summarized in a narrative style.

Using Smith, Flowers and Larkin’s (2009: 81) Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis

(IPA), I committed to treating each participant individually at the exploratory stages,

developing links and connections, making comparisons within individuals’ interview data

rather than applying pre-determined codes across all the data. This gave me the

opportunity to attempt to immerse myself in trying to understand my participant’s

experiences and to try to engage on a deeper level with the data before searching for

connections across emergent themes. I begin with Joey’s story.

5.2 Interview data analysis

5.2.1 Extract 1: Joey’s focus on movement, improvisation and musical structure

From the beginning of the interview, Joey had a story to tell about his connection with

the movement work we had done together. His story involved more than one recurring

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theme but his interest in movement as a means of creativity in both his musical

improvisation and in structuring his musical compositions seemed to be the one that

came to the surface regularly throughout the dialogue. I have included my exploratory

notes and comments so that the reader can follow my analysis and interpretation of the

transcript and how the themes emerged. Descriptive, linguistic and conceptual

comments are identified and the headings are in bold text.

I chose the following extracts because in them Joey focuses his discussion on his

experience of transforming his movement experience of the movement/music exercises

through kinaesthetic imagery into musical ideas. Joey discusses his understanding of

the relationship between movement, dance and music and extends his thoughts and

comments to the wider world of musical performance. In the interview he explained how

he could feel the movements he experienced during the warm-up exercises and core

movement exercises and the deep connection he felt with the music. In particular, he

talked about spatial movement concepts: up and down, in and out and forward and

backward, and the way our bodies can move through three zones: horizontal, vertical

and saggital discussed in Chapter 4 as the shape qualities of spreading/enclosing,

rising/sinking and advancing and retreating. The way he describes his re-experiencing

of movement could be very important in terms of his experience of kinaesthetic imagery.

In extract 1a, Joey is talking about how he experienced one of the warm-up exercises.

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Extract 1a: movement, improvisation and musical structure

Transcript My comments

Joey: It was very hard at first to get into it. Once I’d relaxed after the warm-up I felt really good, really good. Actually my favourite movement warm-up one was when you put on the Arvo Pärt music, the Beatitudes and I had to move using those three zones … horizontal, vertical and saggital. I almost felt like I was doing a choreography, a dance that was … I really really enjoyed that. I really got into it Me: Yes, thanks for mentioning that because we didn’t talk about it before. You felt that you applied your whole body totally to this exercise? J: Yeah, certainly, I became very aware and the music means so much to me personally I suppose that probably helps and I can feel those movements I made now when I’m talking to you about it, they meant a lot, I was trying to portray something M: Can you say what you were trying to portray? J: I’m not sure but I think it was something spiritual. I’ve sung in church choirs and I felt a deep bond with that music … I think I was trying to portray the calmness and otherworldliness of the music, this is what it seemed to me, anyway

Descriptive: Challenged by having to move his body in this way but warm-up helped to overcome fears, anxieties and perhaps awkwardness. Linguistic: Use of words ‘very hard’ to describe his experience at first suggests having to overcome extreme challenge. Use of movement theory terminology. Conceptual: He finds it easy to relate to these movement concepts. Seems to give him a structure to conceptualize his movement and musical ideas. Descriptive: Heightened body awareness and experience of his body movement as a means of expressing the music. Personal connection to the music through movement. Shows importance – he is re-experiencing movement – could be very important in terms of imagery. Linguistic: Use of the words ‘I can feel those movement now when I’m talking to you’ could be important in terms of kinaesthetic imagery as he seems to be imagining the feelings of the movement he had experienced and re-experiencing them. Conceptual: Kinaesthetic imagery used in recalling the experience. Links to body movement-derived schemas. Descriptive: Significance of personal contextualization. Experiences a deeper engagement with the music through movement even though he has a strong connection with singing it previously.

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M: Can you talk a bit about what that meant to you? J: I just felt a connection with it … it’s difficult to explain … (long pause) … the movement it seemed to be choreographed already in my body … it felt very natural and I didn’t need to think where am I going with this it just happened

Conceptual: Overall feeling of or character of the music portrayed through movement of the body. Linguistic: Use of metaphor ‘otherworldliness’ suggests an imaginative experience; one that he can still remember. Linguistic: Use of the word ‘choreographed’ suggests a link with creating and conceptualizing musical structure through dance and movement. Conceptual: The music seemed to take on a deeper meaning, made more sense? Does he mean made more sense than when he sang it? Is he referring to the organic feeling of moving the music rather than directing the flow in an unnatural or forced way? Descriptive: Describing an overall movement connection, whole-body response and kinaesthetic experience with the music.

Joey starts this section of the interview by talking about the difficulty he had in applying

himself to the movement exercises. His use of the words ‘very hard’ to describe this

experience seems to suggest that he felt, at first, awkward and tense, and that he was

challenged to fully immerse himself in the task at hand or ‘to get into it’. After setting the

scene, he provides some detail about how the warm-up exercises helped him loosen up

and made him feel ‘really good’. This detail directs us to the meaning this experience

had for him. It was partly the choice of music that assisted his engagement with the

exercise and his personal connection with the piece that seemed to allow him to release

any tension or embarrassment about moving to it.

We had explored ways in which the body can move in three dimensions in a previous

workshop and this appears to have become important for Joey as a way of thinking

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about and connecting his movements to the music. Using this framework, he felt he was

able to ‘almost dance’ to the music, letting go of his previous awkwardness and

inhibition. Joey talks about how he felt that his whole body was aware of the music and

significantly allowed him to achieve a stronger connection with the ‘calmness’ and

‘otherworldliness’ of the music. More importantly, he recounts that he can feel those

movements he made while he is talking to me about the experience and that ‘they

meant a lot’ to him. The use of the words ‘I can feel those movements I made now when

I’m talking to you about it’ shows the importance of this experience. Joey uses these

words to express a deep connection between the movements he made and the music

and that he can recall his kinaesthetic experience of the music through ‘imaging’ the

feeling of doing those movements in relation to music even though the actual sound of

the music is not present – a phenomenon which I understand as kinaesthetic imagery.

Within this short extract, Joey has already provided me with five different aspects that

recur throughout the discussion, and each one has significance in his experience of the

music/movement workshops:

challenge of the new;

overcoming tension/nerves;

disconnecting/connecting with the feeling how he is moving to the music;

using kinaesthetic imagery to re-experience music/movement related events; and

structuring and implementing musical ideas through choreographical devices

such as use of spatial directions in three dimensions (horizontal, vertical and

saggital).

When Joey came to discuss his connection with musical phrasing and movement, he

described his experience by referring to the ball exercise analysed earlier in this section.

In this next extract, he is talking about how he made sense of the exercise by relating it

to improvising on the saxophone.

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Extract 1b: movement, improvisation and musical structure

Transcript My comments

J: The phrasing? Oh, yeah … perhaps the movement with the ball and things. Yeah that was when you were playing the Gnossienne and I had the ball and I was trying to understand the movement of the phrase and move the ball to it and then we did it vice versa. I played you moved. Yeah, this was about identifying the beginning and the end of the phrase and shaping it, making it wider … I could feel the whole tension of the phrase doing that expanding and contracting thing, feeling the shape. M: Can you tell me a little bit more about your experience of that exercise? J: Mmm … it was kind of like improvising … when I play the saxophone sometimes I get lost … using the ball to do the phrase gave me a chance to feel the whole thing. Sometimes it was difficult to keep it going but I tried to stay connected with the music and the way you were playing. M: What did you notice about your movements? J: A little bit nervous to begin with … I wasn’t quite sure how to … what to do. I noticed I was moving the ball up and down and stretching my arms out at one point. Some of the time I was not really connected with what I was doing … just responding

Descriptive: Connection with the ball exercise. Recalls tracing the movement of the musical phrase in space. Linguistic: Recalls details of exercise in a clearly articulated way Descriptive: Recalls details of how he moved or the aim of the exercise perhaps? Conceptual: Insightful link to immediate response and development of musical ideas. Idea of getting lost during improvisation. Does that matter? Where is he going? If he is lost, where is he? How does he get back on track? Linguistic: Use of the words ‘using the ball to do the phrase’ suggests a connection with the ball as a means of expressing his musical intentions through moving in space with the ball … as though the ball is the music. Descriptive: Difficulty with engagement. Feeling anxious and nervous about making a mistake. A little confused maybe. Conceptual: Seems he experienced some disconnection from the music. Responding from outside-in rather than feeling a stronger inside-out connection. Is he reacting to the music he hears rather than actually feeling the shaping of the phrase?

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M: What do you mean by ‘not connected’ J: Yeah, well I was sometimes letting the music direct my movement … not really thinking too much … which is interesting because usually it’s the other way round…when you are conducting, your movement directs the music … Mmm that’s interesting …

Linguistic: Interesting contradiction. Here he says he is letting the music direct his movement which suggests some level of connection. Conceptual: Sense of letting go as feeling associated with a sense of disconnectedness. By disconnection is he referring to ‘letting go’ of the control of his movements? This seems to feel strange and unnerving to him. Is he referring to ‘over-thinking’ here? Descriptive: Letting the sensory experience take over. Linguistic: Reflective use of language. Making connections with past experiences. Descriptive: Makes a connection with the relationship between the process of making music and his experience of movement.

Here, Joey seems to relate his experience to both a feeling of disconnection and

connection with what he was doing. He mentions the aim of the exercise when he talks

about engaging with the phrasing using the words ‘expanding and contracting thing,

feeling the shape’ which suggests he was trying to understand the connection between

the movement of the phrase and the movements he made with the ball. Later on, he

makes a connection with the way he improvises on the saxophone and the opportunity

to use movement to allow him to find a way of implementing his musical intentions,

which he feels sometimes ‘get lost’ and that using the ball to trace the phrase in the

space around him gave him ‘a chance to feel the whole thing’. This seems to suggest

that Joey finds it challenging to grasp the ‘big picture’ in terms of the overall structure of

the music being played. This seems evident when he mentions that he found it difficult

to stay engaged with the exercise and that some of the time he was not really

connected with what he was doing. He mentions a disconnection with what he was

doing. Paradoxically, he explains his feeling of disconnectedness by saying ‘well, I was

sometimes letting the music direct my movement … not really thinking too much’. Here,

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on the one hand, he seems to be associating connectedness with control and

disconnectedness with letting go. Yet, on the other hand, he is saying that letting go, in

this case with his movements, allowed him the freedom to feel the whole phrase within

the larger framework of the musical structure.

5.2.2 Extract 2: Minna’s focus on opening doors, letting go and feeling secure in

her body

Minna’s recounting of her experience of the movement/music exercises involved many

themes. Overall her interest in movement as a means of opening up new possibilities

and stimulating feelings in the body was related to improving her performance as a

singer. This focus featured throughout the interview. She expressed a desire to find a

different way of thinking about overcoming her challenges as a performer. In the

following extract, Minna discusses her experience of the opportunity to ‘open up’ to new

ideas and the importance she attached to ‘feeling secure in her body’. By this, she

seems to refer to the feeling of confidence in her body to be able to help her realize her

musical intentions comfortably in a performance situation. Additionally, she mentions

her experience of working as a member of a group and how she tried to use this chance

to explore and extend her own ways of moving to the music through observing, imitating

and echoing the movements of others in the group. Minna’s focus on group interaction

suggests that she views group support as an important aspect of performing and feeling

secure in her body.

In the first section of this extract Minna talks about her impression of two particular

group movement exercises she remembers and her experience of feeling a natural

relatedness between her body movement, the body movement of others and the

environment.

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Extract 2: opening doors, letting go and feeling secure in your body Transcript My comments A: Well. The first workshop I remember we did this … especially this feather exercise within a group. I think there was four of us maybe or at least 3. We were tracing the shape of the music in the space with the peacock feathers. That was really nice, something that I remember, somehow it gave me a really good natural feeling about me and my body and feeling the music and having people around me. I think also that day we had this flocking exercise as well, were we had to move around the space and change direction like a flock of geese … that was really really great, I really loved that. Where each one of us would take a lead and the next one would follow. I felt that was something really fun to do to and to examine what other people do with their bodies when they are in a certain kind of situation or and then imitate it and then create something totally new when your leadership is on. What kinds of steps you take and what kind of … it was a kind of like opening up lots of doors to see how your body responds to all kinds of different impulses of the music like … when you have a model like another person and you imitate and echo the movements they make to the music … you can experience new ways of moving your body to the music

Descriptive: Positive memory of her experience of specific group exercise. Linguistic: Use of first person pronoun, emphasis on personal experience. Use of word ‘natural’ again. Descriptive: Felt a relationship between her body and the music and the others experiencing the exercise. Conceptual: By natural does she mean an instinctive effortless feeling not strained or strange or artificial? How does this feeling manifest itself? What does she mean by ‘me and my body’? Is she referring to her connection of her thoughts and her actions? Here she seems to taking the opportunity to observe and analyse what others are doing around her and how she is responding and interacting as a member of the group through movement. Also taking opportunity to explore her own movement patterns and look for new ways of moving by observing the way others move. Experiences new ways of being in her lived world by opening up doors. Does this mean she felt trapped by her current way of being in her world? Descriptive: Observing others’ movements. Using their movement to create something new. Interrelationship of leader-follower aspect of this movement exercise made major impact on her. Recognition of new perspectives by moving her body in different ways. Adding to habitual movement patterns by observing others. Conceptual: What kind of impulses? Is she referring to how their movements are initiated in a different way to hers? Is she experiencing a sense of kinaesthetic empathy?

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Minna begins this section of the interview by talking about the enjoyment she

experienced in doing the group movement exercises. Her use of the words ‘really nice’,

‘really really great’ and ‘I really loved that’ to describe this experience seem to suggest

that she felt comfortable and relaxed and was uninhibited and willing to fully engage

with the group exercises and have fun. After establishing the scene, she provides some

detail about how the exercises gave her an opportunity to make a connection with the

music and the others in the group. She said ‘it gave me a really good natural feeling

about me and my body and feeling the music and having people around me’. It is this

detail that directs us to the meaning this experience had for her. It seems that the

choice of music for these exercises was not particularly significant to her; it appears to

be the choice of group exercise that was important and the interaction with others. This

interaction seems to have been valuable for Minna as a way of observing how other

people move to music and how she interacted in the situation. Using this idea, she felt it

useful to imitate and echo their movements to inform her own creativity to ‘create

something totally new’. Minna talks about how ‘it was kind of like opening up lots of

doors to see how your body responds to all the different kinds of impulses of the music’.

She uses these words to express a deep kinaesthetic experience (an experience of how

it feels to move) but perhaps more importantly, she uses her imagination to change her

habitual movement patterns through social interaction with others in the group.

In another section of the interview, Minna consolidated her thoughts about her

experience of the movement exercises and if she thought her experience was

transferable to her singing. She said:

… I really think that using your body is so important in playing and making music. I have learnt to take the benefits and use my body in a new way … so that I can feel secure in my own complete body when I am singing, not that I am just a head on a stick …

When Minna came to discuss her relationship with musical phrasing and movement,

she described her experience of the ball exercise. In this next extract, she is talking

about how she experienced certain feelings during the exercise:

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… when you played the Gnossienne I got a feel of rhythm and weight and … and a kind of dynamic feeling of that exercise that I then tried to transfer to my singing practice like feeling swaying of the phrase…I connected to the music in a different way than I normally do … a feeling of flowing more naturally not squeezing anything, feeling contact with my body … letting my body help me to get the right feeling for the song

Here, Minna seems to relate her experience to a feeling, a sense of movement. It

appears that previously she had the feeling that her head was a separate entity from

her body. Her choice of words to describe herself as ‘a head on a stick’ in the previous

extract suggests that she felt or had felt at some time that her mind was separate from

her body. Clearly, from the way she describes her experience of moving with the ball to

express the shaping of a phrase, she has noticed some changes in her experience of

mind/body integration. Later in the interview she mentions implementing some of the

breathing exercises she did in the workshops. In the next extract, she talks about what

she noticed during her individual singing practice outside of the research context:

I implemented the breathing exercise that we did many times during the workshops … I did that before I worked on my repertoire practice and what I noticed that when I looked at myself in the mirror when I started to practise was that … it looked more natural, felt more natural and sounded more natural

Here, Minna seems to associate connecting with the rhythm and movement of her

breath as a means of achieving a more relaxed and effortless style and of producing an

unaffected sound. As a singer, it is not surprising that Minna used breathing to try to

transform her sound and style of singing as much importance is given to breath control

in vocal training and performance. What is significant is that she seems to have been

able to use the experience of a body movement approach to the way she practises

through considering the movement of her breath through listening (paying attention) to

her body movement.

Within these short extracts, Minna has given me four different aspects that recur

throughout the discussion and each has significance in her lived experience of the

music/movement workshops:

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opening doors to new possibilities;

group interaction; empathy

feeling a natural connection between body and lived world; and

connecting with the kinaesthetic experience.

The next three sections conclude the accounts of the interviews with the rest of the

participants. However, they are presented here in a less detailed way than the previous

two interviews. As this chapter deals with my pilot study, the aim of this study was to

trial the chosen methods and bring out distinguishing aspects that raise questions,

which may have implications for any change of emphasis of my main study.

5.2.3 Extract 3: Jacq’s focus on well-being, physical exercise

and preparing the body to perform

In this extract, Jacq is talking about her experience of the movement/music exercises in

general and how they helped her overcome tiredness and promote a sense of well-

being:

… sometimes you can let go of yourself … but most of the time I’m usually tired so when I came in to the workshops I thought ‘oh no, I need to move my body again’, it’s so tiring but actually no, after doing the first or second movement exercise I felt happier actually.

It seems that Jacq was energized by her experience even though initially she was

reluctant to engage with the exercises because of the physical effort involved. Later on

in the interview she talks about how the movement/music exercises allowed her to relax

and gave her an opportunity to move her body as a means of releasing tension:

… actually, the exercises are pretty good at relaxing myself…basically exercise and exploring with your movement I think is a very good way of releasing tension … when you are feeling angry or frustrated or something like that actually springing into action in the classroom helps quite a bit … focusing on your breathing and the movement of your rib cage and your diaphragm your anger can go or it will be less intense.

Here, Jacq appears to relate her experience of the warm-up breathing exercises with

managing her emotions. By handling her emotions in this way, she seems to acquire a

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body that is relaxed yet ready for action and a more focused attitude towards herself as

a performer. When Jacq came to discuss her thoughts about how she might apply her

experience of the movement exercises to her singing, she talked about establishing a

fundamental relationship between her mind, body and lived world. She articulates this in

a light-hearted way and brushes her comments aside as though they are superfluous.

However, it is clear from the frequent recurrence of this topic in the interview that it is

something that she feels deeply about and that she wants to find a way of rebalancing

her inner relatedness with her body and her lived world:

… I don’t think the exercises have helped me to perform any better necessarily. I think they are more useful for preparing myself in the preparation in the preparation [sic] of the concert. Yeah, quite redundant but hey, it is good for me and my general well-being. My current singing teacher, who is into linking body and mind stuff has been telling me that I do need to make some connection about it [big comical sigh] that I do need help [laughs]. What I was and probably I still am is the head is there [points to head] and my body is there [points to her torso] and I don’t move … which is terrible.

Here, Jacq provides details about her awareness of her experience that her mind and

body are separate entities. Like Minna, she seems to have the experience that her head

is ‘up there’ and her body is ‘down there’. Her use of the words ‘I don’t move’ suggest

she feels a numbness in her body which she recognizes as undesirable but, unlike

Minna, she seems to find it challenging to be able to change her behaviour. Jacq

provided the following recurring aspects in her interview:

challenge of connecting with mind/body and lived world;

managing emotions;

preparing the body to perform – relaxed but ready for action;

importance of health and well-being for performers; and

performance focus and attitude.

5.2.4 Extract 4: Tunday’s focus on freedom to explore, group interaction and

being in-the-moment

In this extract, Tunday is talking about his experience of the music/movement

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workshops and how they offered him a chance to explore musical concepts which were

different to his experience of one-to-one saxophone lessons:

… when I have one-to-one lessons I am aware that someone is instructing me … someone is telling me what to do but in the workshops we were given freedom to explore … there was an instruction sure and there was a structure but we had to think about what to do to solve certain musical problems. It reminded me of improvising on the saxophone when you have a specific chord structure to improvise on top of …

Here, Tunday relates his experience by talking about the problem solving aspect of the

movement/music exercises. His comments suggest that he felt he could make

autonomous decisions about his musical ideas and put them into practice without being

told exactly what to do. However, he mentions that his experience of this process was

guided by the limitations of the exercise and that he was not totally free to do as he

pleased. This highlights one of the disadvantages of the body movement approach: the

instructions are often given by an instructor/facilitator/teacher and this limits the

autonomy with which students can operate, especially in term of individual or group

practice. When Tunday came to discuss his experience of working with others in the

group he describes his experience as life changing. He talks about how meeting people

for the first time and then immediately starting to move and dance with them in a

workshop setting was exhilarating:

… when I came to meet the people I didn’t know in the workshop it gave me a sense of awareness of what is going on around me and what I felt at that moment … I felt very new and fresh and wanted to know other’s ideas and how they did things. Then, I thought ‘oh my god, I’m going to work with this girl … I’ve not spoken to her before’. So, I felt like ‘OK, now I’ve got to move together with this person’. It’s a life-changing thing when you can see how this works and experience it. In my other music classes most of the time there is no engagement with the people in the class which makes communication very hard and you feel like holding back because you are not sure how people are going to respond to what you say and do.

When Tunday came to talk about the movement/music exercises related to musical

phrasing and dynamic shaping, he described his experience by referring to the way he

shaped his body to the music:

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I can see a sort of connection between my ascending and descending movements. I associated the ascending with loudness.

He went on to describe his movement experience of the phrase structure by explaining

that he saw himself in different locations at different points in the phrase. In this next

extract he is talking about how he made sense of the movement of the phrase by

relating it to positions in space, a kind of aural spatial contour:

… if I advance this way at every point I made a decision about where I’m going to be in the sense of advancing and retiring so I see myself in a different location every time and I see and I try to imagine the phrase, like I’m trying to run with it … I sort of like finished the phrase by moving backwards

Here, Tunday seems to relate his experience of moving to the musical phrasing in a

directional way. He seems to make a strong connection with the movement of the

phrase and the movement he is using to interpret what he is listening to. He remembers

clearly the decision he made about which direction to move, which suggests his

approach was more analytical rather than intuitive. His use of the words ‘I see and I try

to imagine the phrase, like I’m trying to run with it’ appears to reveal a use of

kinaesthetic imagery, in that he is imagining himself moving quickly and fluidly; his use

of movement metaphor in his choice of phrase suggests a feeling of letting go and going

with the flow as an athlete might when they are focused on winning a race. In

corroboration of this inference, later on in the discussion he describes his experience

as somehow being on a track, so I imagine myself at this point, I’m an athlete running … I just believe in my imagination that whatever comes to my head at that time … letting myself go, ready to go’

When Tunday came to talk about how he made movement choices to express the

shape of musical phrases he was listening to, he seems to use a strong sense of

kinaesthetic imagery to guide his movements, creating an imaginary situation:

I find myself in this moment and I have to make a decision … I feel the music is pulling back and I imagine I’ve got to withdraw something from the river, I didn’t quite make it, so I decided to try again …

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Here he seems to be responding to my use of rubato in the phrasing of the Gnossienne

No.1 with a sensory image of music-related movement. It seems as though he can

imagine the feeling of pulling something with a certain amount of resistance out of the

water, anticipating the amount of tension required to fulfil the activity.

Tunday gave me the following aspects that occurred in these extracts:

freedom to explore;

engagement/disengagement from others;

being in-the-moment in performance;

managing change and communicating your intentions;

shaping musical phrase in movement;

spatial contour;

use of movement metaphor; and

use of vivid imagery of body movement experiences.

5.2.5 Extract 5: Mercedes’ focus on unresponsive movement, restrictions and

self-discovery

In the following extract, Mercedes is talking about her experience of moving to music:

… at the beginning I felt like I was a robot really … I was unable to move naturally to the music … that experience had a big impact on me and a big question mark … there was a moment when I thought maybe I’m not a musician because my body was telling me I cannot move properly … I was forcing my body to do it … it was very strange.

Mercedes’ use of the words ‘forcing my body to do it’ to describe this experience

suggests that she found it extremely challenging to engage with the movement

exercises. Her choice of the words ‘I felt like I was a robot really’ to express her initial

response to the movement exercises implies that she felt unresponsive to what she was

being asked to do. This highlights a further disadvantage with a body movement

approach. When she came to discuss this aspect again, she talked about a

disconnection between who she thinks she is and what she has observed about herself

during the workshops:

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… the workshops gave me a very good space to watch myself and questions myself … why am I thinking too much, why do I look unrelaxed even though at the time I felt quite relaxed and I think I am quite a relaxed person but I’m realizing I’m not … I discovered a lot about myself when I was doing the workshops. I realized that I think I’m very serious all the time … I realized that I am actually quite funny [bursts into laughter]. I’m naturally a comedian because I was so serious about doing the movement exercises that were quite easy to do.

When Mercedes came to talk about her experience at the end of the series of

workshops she said:

… it released something that I have which has been blocked for a while … it’s helping me to unblock my natural ability to express my musical ideas through my body … it opened up possibilities available to me…it took me back to the fundamental tools and ways of interpreting music … to be able to make something special out of it keeping a feeling for the natural flow of the phrasing. The way I practise hasn’t changed much but there has been a change in my approach. I can completely translate the movement exercise we did with the three zones and the movement qualities (flick, dab, glide, thrust, wring etc.) so I can be more imaginative and get ideas about how I want to perform the music.

There seems to be a contradiction in Mercedes’ words in that she says the way she

practises has not changed much but she has noticed a change in her approach. It

seems she found the notion of relating musical ideas to her experience of exploring

certain qualities of movement useful and the sensation of exerting varying amounts of

force through movement gave her a new way of thinking about creating musical

meaning through body movement. Using these sensations appears to have offered her

a method of practising that she can add to her established routine. Mercedes gave me

many different aspects to think about in the discussion. The most significant ones are as

follows:

releasing blockages;

questioning her identity as a musician;

unable to move naturally;

being natural with the flow of musical expression;

widening possibilities;

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opportunities to be imaginative;

movement qualities and their corresponding Somatic movement experiences;

not what to practise but how to practise; and

observing yourself and discovering yourself as a musician.

5.3 Searching for patterns in emergent themes

In order to identify patterns between recurring aspects for each participant, I developed

overarching themes. Using Mercedes’ extract as an example, there are a series of

aspects around her experience of restriction: ‘robotic movement’, ‘force’, ‘tension’, ‘lack

of freedom’, ‘blockages’ and ‘self-doubt’. There are also aspects around the experience

of ‘opening-up’ ‘self-learning’ and self-discovery’. I therefore grouped corresponding

aspects together under three titles: Unresponsive Movement, Restriction and Self-

Discovery. Figure 5.1 shows the overarching themes and corresponding aspects from

Mercedes’ experience of the music/movement workshops.

Overarching themes and aspects from Mercedes’ experience of the

movement/music workshops

Themes/aspects Key words and phrases

Unresponsive movement

Unable to move naturally ‘forcing my body’

Feeling like a robot ‘my body was telling me’

Questioning her identity as a musician ‘I cannot move properly’

Restriction

Experiencing limitations ‘that had a big impact’

Feeling strange ‘self-constrained’

Tension ‘unrelaxed’

Self-discovery

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Reflection ‘watch and question myself’

Behaviour ‘felt relaxed but not relaxed’

Unblocking ‘it released something’

Figure 5.1 Overarching themes

I repeated this process for all the participants, treating each transcript on its own terms,

to do justice to each participant’s individuality. This is in keeping with IPA’s commitment

to representing the individual voice (Smith, Flowers and Larkin 2009: 100). Using this

process the following individual overarching themes emerged:

Joey: Focus on movement imagery, improvisation and musical performance.

Minna: Focus on opening doors, letting go and feeling secure in your body.

Jacq: Focus on well-being, self-worth, physical exercise and preparing to

perform.

Tunday: Focus on freedom to explore, group interaction, movement metaphor

and being in-the-moment

Mercedes: Focus on unresponsive movement, restrictions and self-discovery.

The participants’ stories about their experience of the music/movement workshops and

the movement exercises helped me to gain a deeper understanding of how they related

to a Somatic approach. This revealed the differences between each participant’s

response with a variation in their ways of moving, level engagement, connections made

and degree of openness to movement as a means of exploring musical phrasing.

Looking for patterns across the interview data, following the analysis of the extracts

above, allowed me attribute meaning to their accounts of their experiences. This also

gave me an opportunity to start to think about the connections between the movement

data, especially regarding the way participants related their experience to self-

confidence, interaction with others and the situation/environment. An abridged table

showing connections for the group is shown in Figure 5.2. The three main connecting

themes are then discussed in the next section.

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Figure 5.2 Main connecting themes across the group: Theme A

Theme A: Widening Possibilities for Exploring Musical Meaning

Movement, imagery and musical performance

Joey: I can feel those movements I made now when I’m talking to you about

it

Minna: You can experience new ways of moving your body to the music and

observe what other people do with their bodies…to create something totally

new for yourself

Jacq: Focusing on the rhythm of your breathing and on the movement of

your ribcage can help control your emotions

Tunday: I imagine myself at this point, I’m an athlete running…I just believe

in my imagination

Mercedes: I can be more imaginative and get musical ideas from thinking

about different qualities of movement

Opening doors

Joey: I almost felt like I was doing a choreography , a dance…

Minna: … it was a kind of like opening up lots of doors

Jacq: … well, I just did whatever I felt like doing

Tunday: I felt like I’m in the midst of thousands of people and everything is

new

Mercedes: It opened up possibilities available to me

(Cont’d)

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Theme B: Tension and release: holding on and letting go

Exploring tensions/release of musical phrasing through movement

Joey: Using the ball to do the phrase gave me a chance to feel the whole tension

of the phrase … the whole expanding and contracting thing

Minna: I got a feel of rhythm and weight…a kind of dynamic feeling like feeling

the swaying of the phrase … a feeling of flowing more naturally and not

squeezing anything … letting my body help me get the right feeling for the song

Jacq: … the phrase is getting more intense in that it’s rising…I feel that the point

of the music is reaching

Tunday: When I play the saxophone she [his partner in warm-up exercise]

descends with her movement … she was aware of what I was doing and I can

feel the way she is breathing in the phrase

Mercedes: when playing a piece of music that needs to be enriched with flow …

I think the movement exercises we did with phrasing has been a mirror for me

to actually see that very clearly that there is something, some resistance in my

movement for flow to happen and I think it comes from technical thinking

Blockages: Overcoming performance tension/nerves

Joey: It was very hard at first to get into it … once I relaxed, after the warm-up, I

felt really good

Minna: … the very first time … I was a little bit nervous … I was a little bit shy to

do all the movement stuff

Jacq: … exploring with your movement I think is a good way of releasing tension

… after doing the first exercise I felt happier

Tunday: … it’s a bit intimidating sometimes

Mercedes: I found it quite hard … I’m not comfortable to start with … I feel quite

heavy … even though I’m moving I feel static … I feel very self-conscious

(Cont’d)

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Theme C: Making connections: inside and outside

Connecting/Disconnecting with the movement/music experience

Joey: I felt a deep bond moving to that music. I think I was trying to portray the calmness and

otherworldliness of the music

Minna: I connected to the music in a different way than I normally do

Jacq: I do need to make some connection but what I still am is the head is there and my body

is there and I don’t move

Tunday: I can see a sort of connection between the descending and ascending movements

Mercedes: I keep moving back to the centre of the space…the thing about coming to the

centre it’s something I’ve had in my head for a long time…it’s essential for everything you

want to do…it’s like a reference place…like a home

Connecting with others

Joey: …we were being quite intrusive but it helped with the interaction, for me anyway

Minna: …it gave me a good natural feeling about having people around me

Jacq: I think we did some imitation of each other’s movements

Tunday: …the conversation we have to make is not an oral one…we have to communicate

with our bodies…making shapes and phrasing our movements

Mercedes: There is a great connection between two people…the warm-up exercise required

very much focus…I really needed to feel the flow of my partner…so the thinking goes away.

Yes, I was really concentrating

Feeling a natural connection between body, music and lived world

Joey: the movement…it seemed to be choreographed already in my body…it felt very natural

and I didn’t need to try to think…

Minna: I noticed when I looked at myself in the mirror, when I started to practise was that it

looked more natural, felt more natural and sounded more natural. I can feel secure in my own

complete body, letting my body help me to get the right feeling for the song…not that I am

just a head on a stick

Jacq: …we were responding more naturally here

(Cont’d)

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In the next section the three connecting themes are discussed with reference to

Johnson’s notion of Image Schemata and Somatic Movement practices, with a focus on

LMA/BF and SRT.

5.3.1 Theme A: widening possibilities for exploring musical meaning

Participants reported that the movement exercises gave them an opportunity to explore

new ways of experiencing musical ideas through noticing how they moved to music.

Some participants explained that they were able to transfer this experience to their

performance as a means of exploring musical ideas during practising. One way of

attributing meaning to this transfer process from music to movement then back to music

is by relating my participants’ experience to Johnson’s theory of Image Schemata and in

particular, the image schematic structure of musical meaning (Johnson 2007: 243, 257).

Johnson describes his concept of Image Schemata as ‘basic structures of sensorimotor

experience by which we encounter a world that we can understand and act within’

(Johnson 2007: 136). One way we can use Image Schemata for abstract

conceptualization is through the use of metaphor (ibid.: 141). Drawing on his earlier

work with Lakoff (1980: 14–21) he describes the pervasiveness of metaphor in everyday

life, not just in language but also in thought and action, such as structural metaphors

Tunday: This worked well because I had a sort of a natural connection

Mercedes: I felt the whole exercise was really liberating … I’d forgot that I can relate

that (movement) to life as well as playing my instrument. I’m just discovering this now

… there is a natural way of reacting to certain music or sounds and if I am able to follow

or go that natural way, I think it is more exciting. I think everything is actually inside, it’s

a matter of allowing it to come out it’s already in the body, the body already knows

what to do. When the brain interferes somehow it stops everything.

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where one concept is metaphorically structured in terms of another. But there is also

another kind of metaphorical concept, one that does not structure one concept in terms

of another but instead organizes a whole system of concepts with respect to one

another. Lakoff and Johnson call these orientational metaphors, since most have to do

with spatial orientation: up–down, in–out, front–back, deep–shallow and centre–

periphery. They explain that these spatial orientations arise from the fact that we have

bodies of the sort we have and that they function as they do in our physical

environment. They suggest that orientational metaphors give a concept a spatial

orientation: for instance, happy is up and sad is down. They point out that the fact that

the concept ‘happy’ is orientated up leads to expressions in English like ‘I’m feeling up

today’, ‘my spirits rose’ – and that the concept ‘sad’ is orientated down, leading to

expressions like ‘I’m depressed, ‘he’s really low these days’ or ‘my spirits sank’ – is not

arbitrary, but has a basis in our physical and cultural experience. By relating these ideas

to Johnson’s later work (2007: 243) and his concept of Image Schemata and the bodily

grounding of musical meaning it becomes possible to attribute meaning to my

participants’ sense making of their movement experience in relation to musical ideas via

orientational metaphor: relating pitch to the orientational metaphor of up and down and

the expansion of a musical phrase to the metaphor of in and out, for example.

In terms of the bodily grounding of musical meaning, Joey was able to re-experience

and imagine the feeling of the movements he made. He seemed to engage in the

process of interpreting these kinaesthetic images, which arose from the music through

his directional movements (vertical, horizontal and saggital) and which he described as

almost dance-like. His experience can be related to image schemas that have to do with

our spatial orientation – for example, the Verticality schema, which Johnson explains

‘emerges from our tendency to employ an up–down orientation in picking out

meaningful structures of our experiences’ (Johnson 1987: xiv). In music, this schema

allows us to conceptualize the domain of pitch frequency in terms of a spatial vertical

orientation. For instance, we describe melodies as rising and falling; melodic contours in

terms of peaks and dips, and registral space can be said to be wide or narrow,

expanded or contracted. Minna also saw that there was potential in working this way

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and, additionally, in thinking about the impact of exploring musical concepts through

body movement. She openly participated in group exercises and her attitude was open

to trying new ways of working and embrace new experiences.

Jacq, on the other hand, said that the exercises were more useful for her health and

well-being than as a means of exploring musical concepts. However, she saw the

possibility of focusing on the movement of her breathing and how a body movement

approach to breath awareness can help to realize and improve her vocal pitching. This

experience can also be related to the Verticality schema. Take, for instance, the bodily

sensation of muscular contraction and relaxation associated with our experience of pitch

production. Some of our muscles contract when we produce higher pitches with our

voices and some relax when we produce a lower pitch. The physiological correlation

between muscular tension and pitch may be one reason why we tend to associate more

readily an increase of tension with rising pitch and a release of tension with lowering

pitch. Jacq found it challenging to fully commit to the exercises although she assured

herself that she was more relaxed and happier as time went on. Her experience can be

related to the Balance schema, which explains our emotional states of well-being

(Johnson 1987: 89).

In Jacq’s case it seems as though she was searching for physical equilibrium and the

movement exercises gave her a way of finding a balance of emotional forces and

pressures. She mentions feeling angry and that the movement/music exercises gave

her an opportunity to manage her anger. This could relate to Lakoff and Kovecses’

argument that ‘emotions like anger are experienced on a model of hot fluid within a

container (usually closed). Emotions can simmer, well up, overflow, boil over, erupt and

explode when the pressure builds up’ (Lakoff and Kovecses 1987). Jacq seemed to

realize that she needed to re-establish her equilibrium in order to help improve her

performance as a singer by finding a connection between her body and her lived world.

Her account of her experience can also relate to Skinner’s idea that body movement

exercises which involve imagery can help the performer ‘to work with the body rather

than in spite of it’ (Skinner et al. 1979: 10). It seems that at times, Jacq is fighting her

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body rather than nurturing it and finds it challenging to shift her centre of balance to

accommodate change.

In contrast, Tunday seemed engrossed by the movement exercises. He used his

imagination to connect his movement with his musical ideas and was enthusiastic to

experience things from a fresh perspective. He associated his experience of ascending

and descending movements with intensity (varying degrees of loud and soft). This can

also be understood by the Verticality schema. As Johnson explains, ‘this schema

emerges from our tendency to employ an up-down orientation in picking out meaningful

structures of our experiences’ (Johnson 1987: xiv). For example, our everyday body

movement experiences of turning the volume up and down on the TV, sitting down and

standing up, going up and down an escalator, lifting a cup up to our lips or reaching

down to stroke a cat can reinforce the idea of the Verticality schema in that we can

make sense out of our bodily experiences of moving up and down. In terms of Tunday’s

experience of relating moving up and down to degrees of loud and soft dynamics in the

music seems at odds with Johnson’s use of this schema in structuring our musical

concepts. He relates the Verticality schema to musical pitch and suggests that our

conception of pitch is understood in terms of their location on a spatial vertical

continuum. For example, pitches of faster frequency are located higher on the

continuum and pitches of a slower frequency are located lower on the continuum.

However, in the case of Tunday, he used the Verticality schema to organize his concept

of difference in amplitude rather than difference in frequency to differences in height.

This highlights a limitation of Johnson’s work in that it is often too simplistic to explain

the complexities and differences by which people relate musical elements to movement.

Mercedes appeared to feel inhibited at first but gradually took the chance to use her

imagination. By thinking about creating musical ideas through her experience of

movement qualities, such as dab, flick, thrust and float, she was able to successfully

translate her images of these movements into her playing. However, she continued to

find it challenging to use props in the movement exercises, especially the exercise

tracing the shape of the phrase with peacock feather. She seemed to encounter a

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blockage which made her feel uncomfortable in her body and she noticed that she felt

very heavy. This experience can be related to Johnson’s Blockage or Resistance

schema, which can describe the structure of our experience of encountering a barrier of

some sort that impedes or resist the progress of a forceful action (Johnson 1987: 45).

Here, Mercedes’ account of her experience of directing the feather to express a musical

phrase seems to be blocked by her anxiety, which manifests in her report of feeling of

heavy and rigid in response to this movement exercise.

I have included Figure 5.3, below, because of its explanatory significance regarding

human movement as a way of meaning making.

Life and movement are inextricably connected. Attention to bodily movements is thus one of the

keys to understanding how things and experiences become meaningful to organisms like us, via our

sensorimotor capacities … a great deal of our perceptual knowledge comes from movement, both

our bodily motions and our interactions with moving objects

Johnson, 2007: 19

Figure 5.3 Life and movement

The topics of metaphor, imagery and imagination were also noticeable in the way Minna

and Mercedes experienced a sense of generating new opportunities. Minna’s use of the

metaphor of ‘opening doors’ suggested that she had found a way in to or a way out of

something. The image of ‘opening doors’ also suggests a feeling of freedom, an

opportunity to experiment, make choices and to re-think conceptions. All the participants

made some reference to their experience of exploring new ways of thinking about their

interaction with music as performers through body movement encounters. For example,

Tunday described his movement experience of shaping a musical phrase with the ball

by explaining that he saw himself in different locations at different points in the phrase.

As he was moving with the musical phrase, he imagined himself as a runner focused on

winning a race. This goal-orientated image can be related to the Space–Path–Goal

schema. This schema organizes our sense of motion. In music, we often describe a

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change in event in terms of a motion from one point to another. For instance, we link

single pitches together and turn them into melodies that move from point to point. In

musical space, we move from high to low registers, from the first section to the second

section and from phrase to phrase. The significance in this situation of

conceptualization, metaphor, imagery and body movement brought into play Johnson’s

notion of the bodily basis of musical meaning and the image-schematic structure of

musical meaning.

5.3.2 Theme B: tension and release; holding on and letting go

The release of excess tension in the body can determine the accomplishment of a

performer in any sort of learning or performance situation, note Skinner et al. (1979: 10).

It affects body alignment, balance, ability to move autonomously (able to move any part

of the body independently from another; this includes the breath) and economy of

energy expenditure. Mercedes demonstrates that resistance in her movements caused

a blockage in her expression of musical flow in performance. She was aware of tension

in her body and achieved some release because of her willingness to let go of

perceived restrictions. Her desire to change her inflexible approach to practising was

satisfied through finding a balance between striving to achieve technical perfection by

‘thinking too much’ and feeling freer in her body to accomplish a sense of musical flow.

In contrast, Minna felt able to release tension through the movement exercises. She

found a centre of balance by relating it to her experience of feeling the rhythm and

weight of a musical phrase. She viewed this as a dynamic process by noticing the

feeling of the swaying of the phrase and that the shifts in weight caused shifts in her

centre of balance.

Likewise, the ball exercise gave Joey a chance to relate the feeling of tension and

release in his body as he traced the ball in the space around him. He reached out in an

expansive movement and then released in closer towards his body to express the whole

tension and release of a musical phrase. In a similar way, Jacq related her experience

of expressing the rising tension of the phrase by a feeling of rising and reaching in her

body movement, although she does not mention how she experienced the release of

the phrase. Alternatively, she decided to relate the release of tension with an emotional

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feeling of happiness. Although intimidated at first, Tunday appears to acknowledge a

sense of tension and release in his breath. Even when he was playing saxophone he

seems to have experienced a sense of autonomy between his limbs and his breath.

This pilot study helped me to see my participants’ individual ways of connecting with the

movement/music exercises and went some way to helping me understand their

experience of tension and release in musical phrasing.

5.3.3 Theme C: making connections; outside–inside

All my participants seemed to experience different ways of connecting with the

movement/music exercises, including the use imagery, metaphor, emotion and manner

of moving. Joey seemed to make sense of moving to the music in an emotional way,

feeling a deep connection between his experience of the music and his movement by

using imagery and metaphor to describe what he was trying to express through his

actions and by referring to his experience of the characteristics of ‘calmness’ and

‘otherworldliness’ in the music. This was also reflected in the manner in which he moved

with others in the group. He acknowledged the centrality of group interaction and how it

helped him organize his musical thoughts. The way Joey made sense of his experience

appears to relate to Johnson’s spatial schema of Centre–Periphery. Johnson suggests

that the Centre–Periphery schema is integral to our conception of tonality in music and

that we get a sense of our centre-peripheries most immediately from the nature of our

bodies, which are single entities with a centre – our torso – and peripheries – our limbs,

fingers, toes. Additionally, Johnson explains, ‘our world radiates out from our bodies as

perceptual centers from which we see, touch, taste, and smell our world’ (Johnson

1987: 124). I suggest the addition of ‘feel’ to this list of sensorimotor experiences.

Additionally, he suggests that from this central vantage point some things are

understood as near and others far away. What is near to the centre of our body one

moment may be far away the next depending on the way we move and/or the way in

which an object moves in relation to us. In terms of western classical music theory,

tonality is the principle of organizing musical compositions around a central note, the

tonic. It refers to the particular system of relationships between notes, chords and keys

and the notion that these relationships can be perceived as near or far away from the

central note, the tonic depending on how the music moves or the way in which we move

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in relation to the music.43

Like Joey, Mercedes gave the impression that her experience also related to the

Centre–Periphery schema. Her observation of her actions to ‘keep moving back to the

centre of the space’ demonstrates that she made sense of musical phrasing through an

image of returning consistently to the core of her perceived space, appearing to feel the

necessity to move near to the centre of her body before radiating out again. It seems in

this way that she managed to feel a sense of security in moving in a centripetal manner

and a sense of adventure in releasing out in a centrifugal manner as she moved to

express the melodic, harmonic and rhythmic contours of a musical phrase. She seemed

to relate this to something she has neglected in her lived world when she said ‘I’d

forgotten that I can relate movement to life as well as playing my instrument’.

Although all the participants experienced the movement exercises in different ways,

there was some similarity in the way they had felt a ‘natural’ connection with their lived

worlds. Johnson’s notion of the Container schema allowed me to relate their

experiences of a ‘natural’ feeling in their bodies as they moved outwardly to the music

and, in Minna’s case, her experience of the ‘natural’ outward appearance of her body (in

the mirror) to the music she was moving to. Joey demonstrates his felt experience by

saying: ‘the movement … it seemed to be choreographed already in my body … it felt

very natural and I didn’t need to try to think’. Similarly, Mercedes said:

I’m just discovering this now … there is a natural way, I think it’s more exciting. I think everything is actually inside, it’s a matter of allowing it to come out … it’s already in the body, the body already knows what to do. When the brain interferes somehow it stops everything

43 See Mooney (2001: 581–594) for further explanation of tonality and tonal relationships; Chapter 2 for

literature review on Image Schemata and Chapter 3, Section 3.5 for data analysis of movement patterns

in relation to music.

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To hear the music is just to be moved and to feel in the precise way that is defined by

the patterns of the musical motion … we imaginatively enter into its ‘motion,’

experiencing all of the ways it moves, swells, hops, rushes, floats, trips along, drags,

soars and falls. This musical soaring, floating or falling is experienced by us as our felt

flow of experience.

Johnson 2007:239

Figure 5.4 Our ‘felt flow’ of experience

5.4 Reflections on the pilot study and focus of the main study

The movement and interview analyses provided an opportunity for me to try out the data

collecting and analysis methods I had chosen for this research. I found many

deficiencies in the design and limitations in the methods of analysis. For example, the

language I used in the workshops was not clear enough and the questions I asked were

not as specific as they could have been regarding internal consistency. Regarding the

data analysis methods, I experienced data overload, which meant that I was limited in

the amount of data that I could deal with, especially regarding the movement data. It

may also have been helpful to revisit the movement data in light of the interview data

and find a way of synthesizing the data to create a more critical discussion of the

findings. However, I was careful to not ignore information that conflicted with my

assumptions regarding the validity of a Somatic Movement approach, although I could

have offered a more detailed critical discussion of the disadvantages which emerged,

such as participant’s experience of discomfort and self-consciousness. Furthermore, I

needed to consider that body movement methods do not always have a positive effect

on musicians’ performance. One participant commented that ‘I found it quite hard … I’m

not comfortable to start with … I feel quite heavy … even though I’m moving, I feel static

… I feel very self- conscious’. Another mentioned that ‘it’s a bit intimidating sometimes’.

This once more raises the issue of my facilitation during the workshop and how my

teaching approach may have influenced the outcome of the three main themes. I took

this into account when planning the main study and made the language that I used and

the facilitation process much clearer and systematic and less exploratory in nature.

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Johnson’s following argument was helpful in framing the discussion of the pilot study

findings:

The meaning in and of the music is not verbal or linguistic, but rather bodily and felt. We understand the meaning of longing, desire, expectation for better things to come, and so on. We cannot convey it verbally, but it is nonetheless meaningful, and is enacted via our active engagement with the music. (Johnson 2007: 242)

Nevertheless, I noticed the limitations regarding the overly simplistic nature of relating

certain musical performance concepts to certain Image Schemata. For instance, the

dynamic nature of the Source–Path–Goal schema is reflected in the various spatial

senses of the concept of a journey involving a starting point – trajectory and destination.

Yet the focus of the discussion of this schema is based on our understanding of the

English words ‘beginning’, ‘middle’ and ‘end’, and by extension our understanding of

what constitutes a story. It does not take into account other modes of understanding

such as our sense of moving from one place to another or of moving one part of our

body from one place to another. This highlighted how a Source–Path–Goal schema can

both enrich and constrain possible interpretation of movement and interview data and

that further consideration of the helpfulness of Image Schemata in understanding how

body movement awareness and experience can be transformed into specific sounds

during music performance was needed.

Before conducting this pilot study, I had thought the most important themes were the

broader and bigger issues such as musical expression, transmission of musical ideas to

the listener and music performance education. However, during the pilot study, my

thinking shifted focus to using the personal imagery of the performer to assist the

realization of musical phrasing ideas. I noticed that my participants brought with them

their complex musical backgrounds, their influences, their weaknesses and strengths

and the wide variety of musical situations they had dealt with. In the workshops, I found

them moving with purpose to work out and question their personal musical perceptions

and in the interviews they talked openly about their personal experiences, which they

seemed to attach importance to. The movement and the interview data seemed to be

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achieving new objectives. It shifted my attention from a general observation of how the

participants moved in relation to music to how their individual movement experiences in

relation to music can be transformed into organized patterns of movement that can help

them achieve their musical intentions at their instrument. It made me aware of the

notion of kinaesthetic imagery as a practice method and the idea of Image Schemata as

a means of transforming movement experiences. However, I also noticed that there

were limitations to this idea, not least that the imagery so far had been instigated by me

playing the piano or by a participant listening to a recording. This influenced my decision

to limit my playing in the main study to just the warm-up exercises and to re-design the

way I presented the exercises so that the participant had the chance to develop his

personal imagery, encouraging him to be his own inner teacher, ready to guide himself

on the path to improved technique at the piano and thus adopting a more Somatic

approach.

The pilot study participants experienced movement/music exercises that were individual

and collective. They described their involvement as individuals and as members of a

group. They presented their lived-experience as they were seeing it and at the same

time their lived-experience of empathizing with others. However, the pilot study made it

clear that I was studying individuals’ rather than group interaction. Nevertheless, the

individual aspects that arose were not as specific to individual participants as I first

thought. They are aspects which have commonalities to other musicians from similar

backgrounds – as the main study shows – but they may be seen differently.

The pilot study highlighted many aspects related to a Somatic approach, sensory

imagery and the practise of musical phrasing such as spatial pathways, moving away

from and towards the body, different manners in which we can move to music,

embracing possibilities, tension and release, mind-body dualism, health and well-being,

imagery, making connections with a lived world, imagination, use of metaphor, or the

felt flow of musical motion. After analysing the data, I noticed that it was not how the

participants moved in relation to the musical phrasing that was important: it was how

they made sense of their experiences and applied them that was interesting and

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illuminating. For instance, relating this to Johnson’s notion of Image Schemata, one

participant seemed to make sense of his experience through a combination of Vertical,

Container and Balance Image Schemata whereas another found reason through a

combination of Source–Path–Goal, Vertical and Centre–Periphery schemata. These

insights prompted me to re-direct my focus from a group study to a more in-depth main

study of one pre-professional music performance student with a western classical music

training background. The participant, a pianist, was selected from the initial group of

volunteers. He was unable to take part in the pilot study due to prior commitments but

was interested in exploring different opportunities to deepen his understanding of

different methods of practising to complement his already established tool bag, such as

trial and error, repetitive practise and staccato training (a technique he talked about

quite a lot as a means of achieving a legato touch especially with regard to scales and

arpeggios by practising everything staccato first).

5.5 Summary

In this chapter, I have presented the movement patterns in relation to musical phrasing

of one of my participants, Joey, as an example of my chosen method of analysing the

movement data through KMP, and recounted the movement-related music experiences

and stories of five pilot study participants. At the time of the study, they were all

undergraduate music performance students studying music performance at a university

in England. The data gathered through the movement workshops and interviews

highlighted various aspects of Kestenberg’s (1999) shape flow design movement

category and experiences of participants during the movement workshops as they

engaged in the movement/music exercises. The spatial movement patterns of one

participant showed a willingness to let go and release many preconceptions about

moving to music whereas another participant revealed her reticence to let go of the idea

that movement was useful only for relaxing the body and not as a means of practising or

improving her performance or way of interpreting the music.

Extracts from the semi-structured interviews were analysed. These helped to formulate

key connecting themes and stories.

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Through my data, I identified three connecting themes:

Widening possibilities;

Tension and release; and

Making connections.

The first of these themes – the connection between body movement, imagery and

music perception – led me to study Johnson’s work on Image Schemata (see Chapter

2). The latter two themes introduced me to kinaesthetic imagery and kinaesthetic

imagination, the notion of release in the body and guided movement imagery practice.

As a result, I looked into the principles of SRT (see Chapter 2).

The chapter ended by addressing the focus of the main study. The pilot study was

invaluable in helping me rethink and redirect the focus of my research. Having

discussed the surrounding literature in the previous chapter, I made contact with this

field through this pilot study. I decided that Johnson’s theory of Image Schemata would

be very useful in interpreting the research findings and in attributing meaning. LMA/BF,

SRT and KMP complemented the theoretical concepts of Johnson and helped to enrich

my discussion of the data in the main study. In the next chapter, I introduce the main

study and briefly revisit my methodological considerations in view of the reshaping of

the main study.

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Chapter 6: The main study: working with a

pianist

6.1 Introduction

The main study builds on the pilot study in employing movement/music workshops and

interviews as a means of collecting data to address the central research question:

How does a pre-professional undergraduate piano student experience the

exploration, implementation and communication of musical phrasing

intentions through a Somatic Movement approach?

And the three subsidiary questions:

How does a pre-professional student pianist fulfil their own musical phrasing

intentions through a Somatic Movement approach away from the piano

keyboard?

How does a pre-professional student pianist describe their experience of a

Somatic Movement approach to supporting their learning and development as

future professional pianists, with a focus on musical phrasing?

How does a pre-professional student pianist apply their Somatic Movement

experiences to the way they practise and implement their musical phrasing

intentions both at and away from the piano keyboard?

I developed the structure and content of the workshops to accommodate a shift in focus

from studying individual and group experiences away from their musical instruments to

studying an individual (solo) musician’s experience in more depth both away from and

at their instrument – the piano.

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To reshape the workshops, I designed three workshops that focused on two contrasting

pieces of music using a ‘before’ and ‘after’ scenario to track any changes. The first two

workshops focused on Neil March’s Diversions and the third workshop focused on

Beethoven’s Sonata in C Minor Op.10 No. 1. Additionally, I decided to use an

unstructured interview approach to encourage the participant, prompted by an initial

focus question, to take the lead in the discussion. I persisted with KMP to analyse the

movement data as I found it helpful in reflecting participant’s musical performance style.

I considered alternative methods to Smith, Flowers and Larkin’s (2009) IPA process of

analysing interview data such as descriptive phenomenology (Giorgi 1985; 2003), and

template analysis (King 1998; 2007). However, I chose to favour IPA as it aligns with a

hermeneutic phenomenological approach (van Manen 1997) and seemed the best tool

for the job in describing, interpreting and attributing meaning to the participant’s

experiences of the movement/music exercises. The other methods tended to focus on

relating the participant’s experience to issues more appropriate for psychological or

counselling investigations.

Using IPA, I learnt about what my participant experienced and how he experienced it

(Langdridge 2007: 85). This presented a rich description of his lived experience based

on reflective analysis and interpretation of my participant’s account. Other approaches

only gave a description of the participant’s experience, which is the aim of a descriptive

phenomenological approach (Giorgi 1985: 69). Such interpretations of lived experience

tap into the unique nature of each human situation. This allowed me to move beyond

the data and gain an insight into the significance of the participant’s experience from his

point of view and attribute meanings to these experiences. In addition, I used video-

assisted recall, specifically, Interpersonal Process Recall (IPR: a process developed by

Norman Kagan 1980: 262–263 where a video or audio recording of an interactive event

such as a workshop, meeting or counselling session is viewed by a participant and a

spoken account is given of their experience at the time) to add another layer and to

consider the participant’s experience from a new perspective.

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6.2 Research strategy for the main study: single case study

My main study can be called a single-case study as it includes the study of ‘detailed,

intensive knowledge about a single case’ (Robson 2002: 89).

In a case study, ‘the case is the situation, individual, group, organization or whatever it

is that we are interested in’ (Robson 2002: 177). Yin (1981; 1994) regards a case study

as:

A strategy for doing research which involves an empirical investigation of a particular contemporary phenomenon within its real life context using multiple sources of evidence. (Yin 1994: 90)

Yin (ibid.) notes that one of the important points about a case study is that it is about the

particular. Here, the purpose is particular in that, the study aims to explore how one

pianist responds physically to the body movement/music exercises presented in the

music/movement workshops and how he describes and makes sense of his experience

of these exercises as a method of exploring and practising musical phrasing away from

and at the instrument.

6.3 Research methods revisited: re-shaping the workshop design

This section extends the discussion about my chosen methods of data collection begun

in Chapters 3 and 4. First, I talk about how I have modified the format and content of the

workshop design. Second, I discuss my decision to use an unstructured interview

approach more fully and finally, I introduce my use of the video-assisted recall model,

IPR, to explore my participant’s experiences from a new perspective in more detail.

6.3.1 Movement/music workshop: procedure

This section extends the discussion presented in Chapter 3, Section 3.5.2.1 by outlining

the modifications I made to the format and content and delivery of the workshops used

in the pilot study. I planned three workshops, which took place over a 12-month period.

As I wanted to explore what it is like for a pre-professional undergraduate music

performance student to experience a Somatic Movement approach both away from and

at the piano keyboard, and his experience of the impact of this experience on his

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performance, I needed to alter certain aspects of the layout of my workshop design.

This involved planning a ‘before scenario’ and an ‘after scenario’. I did this by dividing

the workshop into three parts:

In part one, I invited my participant to perform an extract from a piece of music. My

participant had been given a week to prepare the extract and I had asked him to

represent his phrasing intentions by drawing a contour line on the score (see

example in Figures 6.1 and 6.2). In the first and second workshops, I used March’s

Diversions, as I wanted to continue to explore how performers experienced phrasing

possibilities in contemporary music and how they physically responded in movement

to the musical phrasing of a newly composed post-tonal multi-metrical composition.

In the third workshop, I invited my participant to choose a piece of music he would

like to work on. He chose the first movement of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata in C

Minor Op.10 No.1. This movement of the Sonata opens dramatically with contrasting

loud and soft phrases. The initial symmetrical phrases are highly angular, consisting

of ascending dotted quaver arpeggios put next to a three-note rounded ‘sighing’

motif (Figure 6.2). My participant had learnt this piece for his end of year solo recital

exam and could play it from memory. However, he noticed that his performance of

certain sections of the piece could be improved with regards to implementing his

musical phrasing choices and he was keen to see if the body movement/music

exercises could help him to make these improvements. The two music choices

happened to be differentiated and gave contrast.

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Figure 6.1 Diversions by Neil March; bars 1–5 showing participant’s pre-workshop phrasing

contours in black and post-workshop in red

Figure 6.2 Beethoven’s Piano Sonata in C Minor Op.10 No.1 (edited by Barry Cooper, ABRSM

1979); bars 1–25 showing participant’s pre-workshop phrasing contours in black and post-

workshop in red

The second part involved the movement/music exercises. I structured this part in

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the same way as in the pilot study, with Introduction/Warm-up, Development and

Closure sections (see Figure 3.1). The difference was in the content and the way

I presented the movement exercises. I decided to make the content more

structured so that there was less opportunity to deviate from the main purpose of

the workshop. Additionally, I chose to use movement exercises more closely

related to SRT and Dalcroze-inspired approaches. I decided to do this because

of the focus on the use of sensory imagery and imagination in both these

techniques.

6.3.2 The movement/music exercises

The Introduction section was designed so that my participant had the chance to

experience the type of movement/music exercises he would encounter in the

Development section of the workshop, and to give him time to get used to the

environment and time for mutual understanding and empathy between us to be

established.

The Introduction involved three warm-up exercises: breathing, shaping space and

shaping flow in preparation for the main movement/music exercises presented in the

Development phase of the workshop. The first breathing exercise was inspired by my

experience of Laban/BF and SRT, which allows the participant to create an image of

their breath filling and energizing different parts of the body. The intention of this

exercise is to release any unwanted tension in the body and to notice where

unnecessary tension is being held. This was followed by a gentle stretching out of the

whole body and releasing of tension in the neck and shoulders by rolling the head

down and the chest towards the floor then letting everything go, like a marionette that

has had her strings cut, before rolling back up the body to a relaxed but aware standing

position. Figure. 6.3 shows Alex doing his released marionette movement:

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Figure 6.3 Marionette movement

Further introductory exercises included Modes of Shape Change, an exercise I adapted

from LMA/BF and Dalcroze-inspired practice where the participant carves a physical

response in the air with the hand to express various musical elements such as rhythm,

melody or harmonic tension and release in the music they are hearing, using the hand

and the fingers to carve a pathway through space to interpret the shape of the music.

The music I chose for this warm-up exercise was Panel No. 1, to Luke by British sound

artist Monty Adkins (2009). I specifically chose this contemporary electroacoustic piece

because I wanted the participant to have the opportunity to explore a contemporary

sound world in preparation for working on Diversions. This piece provided the

opportunity to explore music that is based on layers of sound rather than working

towards climactic points. Adkins’ compositional process of mixing and balancing these

layers allowed the participant the chance to explore the spatial pathway of the music:

attending to sounds that show through, those that disappear, and others that take over

without the expectation of a regular pulse, established form and structure, functional

harmony and a set time signature as he carved his pathway in space, making decisions

about which layers of sound to attend to in the music (Monty Adkins 2011). Figure 6.4

shows the participant carving a pathway in space to the opening of Panel No. 1.

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Figure 6.4 Alex shaping space

The final warm-up exercise, Shaping Flow, was influenced by LMA/BF and SRT

although I have also experienced this exercise in a Dalcroze session. The exercise

involves responding to harmonic changes played on the piano as chords, by changing

the shape of the body when hearing a change in the harmony. The aim is to express an

interpretation of the sound of the particular harmony and the way it flows from one

chord to another through the changing shape of the body. For example, the way a

small tight spiky body shape in response to a chromatic chord cluster can change into a

large open curved body shape in response to a major 7th chord. This can help

musicians to kinaesthetically experience the harmonic flow or structure of a piece of

music and involves imagining the kinaesthetic nature of sound and transforming

sensory imagery into movement. I use the term ‘flow’ here to mean the continuousness

or ongoingness of movements, which relates to LMA/BF. In this sense, flow can be

experienced in two opposing ways: namely, free flow and bound flow. Free flow is

about a sense of outpouring, letting the inside out and the outside in, unstoppable,

open hearted and fluid whereas bound flow is about a sense of containment, control,

keeping the inside in and the outside out, rigidity, having strict boundaries and

inflexibility (Laban 1950/2011: 75–76). I played the piano for this warm-up exercise

using a combination of Howard Skempton’s Toccata (1987/1996) and March’s

Diversions (2010) as a basis for improvisation so that I could guide the participant’s

response with regard to exploring both free and bound flow movement. I chose

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Skempton’s piece because of its use of chord clusters and whole tone and modal

harmony, which pre-empts the harmonic language used by March, as preparation for

working on Diversions. Figure 6.5 shows how Alex shaped his body in response to the

first six chord clusters I played on the piano.

Figure 6.5 Alex shaping flow

In the development section, I introduced the three main movement/music exercises,

which related directly to exploring musical phrasing away from the piano.

The first movement/music exercise involved identifying phrase departures and

arrivals by passing a tennis ball from one hand to the other while singing/vocalizing

the extract. A tennis ball was used to allow the pianist to be as accurate as possible

in defining the moment of identification. Singing the extract allowed the pianist to

explore the extract in an embodied way and encouraged him to link the phrasing to

his breath.

The second movement/music exercise involved tracing the musical pathway of

the phrases in the space around him with a light football while imagining the music.

In this case, a light football was used to embody the music and allow the pianist to

establish a bridge between himself and the ball as the music. Using a ball rather

than a hand to trace the musical pathway also gave the pianist the opportunity to

bounce, throw or roll the ball if desired, to show moments of emphasis, for example.

Additionally, using a ball allowed the pianist to experience the physical feeling of

moving the ball as the music along a spatial pathway and guiding it through musical

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events.

The third movement/music exercise involved showing the shape qualities of the

phrases in terms of a sense of opening out and closing in by manipulating a Thera-

Band while imagining the music. A Thera-Band was used to allow the pianist to show

his perception of the elasticity of the way the music opens out and closes in and the

manifestation of the build-up and release of energy within a phrase. Using the Thera-

Band allowed the pianist to physically experience the tension and release he was

exerting and how he was relating his efforts to the music.

In the Closure section, I planned to repeat an abbreviated version of the first

introductory breathing exercise with the intention of allowing the participant time to

readjust and prepare for the next phase of the workshop. After a brief cool-down, I gave

the participant 30 minutes break before doing the third part of the workshop, which was

to play the piece a second time, this time trying to take into consideration his

experience of the movement exercises, especially with regards to using sensory

imagery and implementing phrasing choices.

The third part of the workshop involved playing the extract from Diversions a second

time with the intention of observing any visible and audible changes in performance at

the piano with regard to aspects of musical phrasing. After the second performance, I

asked my participant to redraw his phrasing intentions on the score over the top of his

original markings before the movement exercises. This was to help me and him see if

the body movement experience influenced musical phrasing choices with reference to

the score. Directly after the workshop I invited my participant to join me in an interview

about his experience. Details regarding the design and implementation of the

unstructured interview and video-assisted recall session can be found in Chapter 3,

Section 3.5 and remain unchanged.

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6.4 Research procedure overview

As mentioned in the previous section, I collected the data for my main study over a

period of 12 months. Each phase was video and audio-recorded so that I could return to

the data at a later date during the analysis and interpretation stages and so that the

participant could review the data during the video-assisted recall sessions. As the

research procedure was sequential in nature, the steps are presented here in

chronological order:

Pre-meeting with participant to discuss the research aims, planning and preparation

and to collect background information.

Participant preparation for a period of seven days. Practising the chosen music and

drawing phrasing contours on the score.

Music/movement workshop 1 (using Diversions).

Post-workshop interview.

Music/movement workshop 2 (Diversions continued).

Post-workshop interview.

IPR interview (1).

Pre-workshop interview (using Beethoven’s Sonata Op.10 No.1).

Music/movement workshop 3 (Beethoven Sonata continued).

Post-workshop interview.

IPR interview (2).

Unlike the pilot study the workshops in the main study were conducted in a

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soundproofed music recording studio equipped with a grand piano and with enough

space to move around for the movement/music exercises. This provided a more private

place to work – hopefully helping the participant to feel more comfortable and less

intimidated than the pilot study participants – and access to better recording equipment.

The workshops were recorded by two video cameras. One was set up to film the

movement/music exercises and the other to film the participant’s performance at the

piano. All of the interviews were video and audio recorded.

I planned three workshops, three unstructured interviews and two IPR video-assisted

recall interviews. The workshops lasted 60 minutes, the unstructured interviews lasted

around 30 minutes and the IPR video-assisted recall lasted approximately 40 minutes.

6.5 Introducing the main study research participant

The participant, Alex, a first-year undergraduate music performance student, was

selected from the initial list of potential participants who signed up to take part in the

pilot study. At the time of the pilot study, he was unable to participant as he had other

commitments. The following account was taken from the participant’s reflective account

prior to taking part in the workshops.

Alex (aged 19 years old) has played the piano since he was three years old, and has

been an avid listener of jazz since he was seven years old. Though members of his

family had sung in choirs and played the piano, as far as he was aware, he was the only

family member that had shown any real interest in music. From a young age, he had

one-to-one piano lessons and, with the exception of a short gap from age 8–10, has had

private tuition since. He completed all the jazz graded exams by 13 and classical grades

by 17. His piano training background is predominately western classical but he also has

a keen interest in playing jazz. Alex was selected because he is an advanced pianist

who already teaches piano and performs professionally but does not have experience of

body movement-based approaches as a practice method or in preparing piano music

for performance. In this situation, the lack of movement experience is important as

hopefully this will help to make the impact of a body movement approach clearer.

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6.6 Summary

This chapter has re-considered some of the methodological details of my research

approach in the main study. In this main study, my participant was a male

undergraduate pianist from a western classical music training background aspiring to be

a professional musician, who would help me to address my central research question.

The key aim of my study was discussed in light the use of a phenomenological mini

case study. Additionally, modification made to the workshop structure and content and

mode of delivery was discussed. Finally, a brief overview was given of the modified

research procedure before the research participant was finally introduced in anticipation

of the data analysis in the following chapter. The structure of the analyses follows the

chronological order set out in the research procedure in Section 6.4.

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Chapter 7: The main study: data analysis

… with the movement exercises I found it helped me connect the phrases … whether it was more necessary to feel a break in the music or how long that break might be or whether it was more about feeling a continuous flow with a dip and the rising and falling of my playing. (Alex)

7.1 Introduction

This chapter presents the analysis of the movement data and the post-workshop

interview data gathered during the music/movement workshops. I facilitated three

workshops, during which I made a video and audio recording of Alex’s performances on

the piano, his movement patterns in response to the movement/music exercises and his

post-workshop interview so that I could return to the data during the analysis and

interpretation phases of the research.

Alex’s performance at the piano keyboard, the movement patterns he used away from

the piano keyboard in response to the movement/music exercises, and his accounts all

tell us something about his lived experience through his interaction with the research

setting. No doubt his piano performance and movement awareness will continue to

develop, but at this stage the findings are limited to exploring his experience of the

movement/music exercises at the particular time of this research project.

I began the analysis of the data by describing the sound of Alex’s initial performance of

Diversions in the first workshop. After listening to the audio-recording I observed the

movements he made during his performance, which I did by reviewing the video-

recording with the sound turned down. I analysed the first four bars of the piece, which

Alex identified on the score as the first phrase. (See Figure 7.1 as a reminder of the

score. The black contour lines relate to his musical phrasing choices pre-

movement/music exercises and the red contour post movement/music exercises.) I then

focused on the way he shaped the phrase in terms of dynamic shaping and rhythmic

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flow (arrangement of accents and emphases) and how he moved to facilitate his

performance of his musical phrasing choices.

Figure 7.1 Opening four bars of Diversions

7.2 Workshop 1: sound and movement analysis

This section is organized into three sub-sections, which relate to the three phases of the

music/movement workshop as outlined in Chapter 6, Section 6.4.144:

Phase 1 provides an analysis of Alex’s first performance of Diversions focusing on

the first four bars.

Phase 2 gives an account of how Alex moved to the movement/music exercises in

relation to his musical phrasing choices for Diversions.

Phase 3 offers a comparative analysis of Alex’s second performance of Diversions 44 A detailed description and analysis of each phase can be found in Appendix K. They may be referred to

as 7.2.1: Phase 1; 7.2.2: Phase 2 and 7.2.3 Phase 3.

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directly after his experience of the movement/music exercises.

As a way of exploring Alex’s experience of the workshop further and, in keeping in step

with the research process, the next section presents an analysis of the unstructured

interview conducted immediately after his second performance of Diversions.

7.3 Analysis of post-workshop unstructured interview

Using the IPA process of analysis (see Chapter 3, Section 3.8), I explored what Alex

had to say about his experience of the movement/music exercises he did in the second

part of the workshop and his experience of any noticing changes between his first and

second performances with regard to implementing his musical phrasing choices. As in

the pilot study, I have included exploratory notes and comments so that the reader can

follow the analysis and interpretation of the transcript and how the themes emerged. As

in the pilot study, I use three types of coding in my exploratory comments, namely

descriptive, linguistic and conceptual. These are based on Smith, Flowers and Larkin’s

(2009: 84–89) suggestions for initial noting in IPA interview analysis.

The descriptive comments described the content of what Alex said, the subject of the

talk within the transcript, and highlight the things which seemed to structure his thoughts

and experiences. Linguistic comments focused upon exploring Alex’s specific use of

language. Conceptual comments focused on engaging at a more interrogative and

conceptual level. Comments were more interpretative where an interesting feature of

Alex’s account prompted further questions. I included an element of personal reflection

to conceptual coding and the interpretation developed at this stage drew on my own

experiential and professional knowledge. Smith, Flowers and Larkin (2009: 89) suggest

one way of thinking of this is as ‘a dialogue between your own pre-understandings and

your newly emerging understandings of the participant’s world’. The numbers in the left-

hand column related to a unit of dialogue from the transcript and my comments

connected to that particular unit. Extract 1 reflects what Alex said about his experience

of the workshop and the music and the movement exercises.

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Extract 1: Making connections – how it helped, decision making and physicalizing

the music

Transcript My comments

1. 2. 3. 4.

Me: As I haven’t got an interview schedule as such or any specific questions I want to ask you … can I just start things off by posing a focus question and then we can take it from there. Alex: Yeah, sure Me: I’m really interested in your thoughts about today’s workshop. Can you tell me a bit about your experience today of using body movement to explore your musical ideas. A: Well, I’d say the main thing with the movement was the connection with the musical phrase. With the movement I found it helped me connect the phrases whether it was more necessary to make a break in the music or to decide how long that break might be … or whether it was more a continuous flow with a dip and the rising and falling of the … playing, the volume as well which the movement definitely helped with, especially managing to get a literal sense of what that might be, so yes, in that way it was helpful

Descriptive Importance attached to phrasing. Especially in exploring ways of connecting phrases together and in making decisions regarding how he wanted to express these moments. Linguistic: Use of movement metaphor to describe his experience of deciding whether to break the flow of the phrase or to maintain an unbroken flow. This is significant in that he seemed to perceive phrasing as motion. Either by separating the phrases into pieces or parts and thus interrupting the continuity of the music or by moving steadily and continuously through in a current stream. Use of verb to ‘dip’ could suggest he experienced a feeling of immersing himself

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5. 6.

M: Can you tell me a bit more about what that meant to you?

A: I would say identifying the phrases mainly happened beforehand. I don’t think the movement (exercises) was particularly to do with identifying the phrases but it helped me realize the details within each section and moving from one to another … getting The energy right... changing it when necessary

briefly into the plunging motion of the music in order to emerge out in an upward motion before falling again from a higher to a lower level. Conceptual: Does this suggest he felt an alternation between balance and free flow by allowing the experience of the music to dip and rise and fall freely or is he referring to a bodily sensation of dipping his body in response to the music and how he wanted to express his ideas? Descriptive: Relating concept of phrase with aspects of movement. Experiencing ‘volume’ in sound with his body helped him get a deeper understanding of the concept. Linguistic: Use of term phrase ‘literal sense’ to describe his experience of embodying relative degrees of loudness suggests a bodily experience without metaphor or exaggeration. Descriptive: Reiterating the importance of juncture points between phrases. He was happy with his initial intentions for the departure and arrival points of the phrases but felt the details needed working on. Reference to the Shaping Space warm-up exercise from

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7. 8.

M: I’m interested in what you say about the change in your energy … can you explain what you mean by that?

A: Well, perhaps I can use one of the exercises as an example … especially the most effective one (movement exercise) for me was simply with the moving of the fingers with the music in the background. That really helped me find more connections, especially with the breathing exercises beforehand to realize the flow of energy in all parts of your body not just specifically thinking about your hands at the piano. So, that was a nice challenge and like I said it gave me a tingling feeling all over because I was starting to make constant connections with all

the workshop. He found the use of movement imagery to create pathways in space in response to the music useful in finding connection with music. He perceived some changes in his identification of phrase departure and arrivals but did not perceive them as significant changes. Linguistic: Use of phrase ‘moving from one to another’ suggests he perceives going from one phrase to another as a journey from one point to another. Conceptual: How does he perceive getting from one phrase to another? Does getting the ‘energy right’ refer to force, weight, propulsion, drive? Is he using kinaesthetic imagery here? Descriptive: He makes a connection with the breath and use of imagery to sense the flow of energy in his body. Directing attention away from the hands to other parts of the body. Experienced a pleasurable physical sensation in his body which he links to the experience of making a continuous link between the music and his body and the fluency of this connection. Linguistic: Use of terms ‘flow’ and energy’ again perhaps

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9. 10. 11. 12

those parts of your body and considering them more fluently M: Can you tell be more about your sensory connection with the music? A: Well, I think the exercise that helped with that was the ball, moving up and down representing the music with movement because it was quite, well, to have a physical object to represent music is quite odd and quite abstract. But, when you get your head around it, it does help you sort of physicalize an actual shape which stays in your memory and helps you connect with the piece. M: What do you think about this?

reinforce his perception of the motion of the music. Conceptual: Is he experiencing a realization that it’s his whole body that is engaging in the performance process? Descriptive: Linking the movement sensation of ascending and descending with the music although he is not specific about which aspect of music he is relating it to. His perceives using the ball to represent the music as quite a strange phenomenon. He seems to link abstract thoughts and conceptualizations of music. He refers to his head as being separate from his body, relating the notion of shape to something physical and his experience of being able to transform his bodily sensation into a movement memory, and that can assist him to forge stronger connections with the music he is playing. ... (continued in extract 2)

Alex started this interview by talking about his experience of making a link between the

movement/music exercises, and the concept of musical phrasing in general and his

musical phrasing choices. His use of the words ‘it helped me connect the phrases’ in

dialogue unit 4 to describe this experience seemed to suggest that it helped him make

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decisions regarding how to approach junctures between phrases. After setting the

scene, he provided some detail about how the movement exercises helped him to

understand the flow of the phrase junctures and allowed him to experience different

ways of moving from one to another, making musical meaning either by interrupting the

flow to give a breathing space or by moving along in a continuous flow to give a smooth

unbroken sense of motion. This detail directed me to the meaning of the experience

from his point of view. He used the words ‘dip’ and ‘rising and falling’ to describe the

flow of the phrasing which appeared to refer to his kinaesthetic experience of the shape

of the phrase in terms of a pathway in space. He seemed to be able to re-experience

the feeling he had experienced of plunging then ascending his body in space as he

responded to the music: dipping in and out, up and down. He also referred to balance

and the feeling of being slightly out of control as he reached the dipping point and

allowed himself to let go and fall freely before rising again and achieving equilibrium.

In the movement/music exercises we had not focused on exploring musical dynamics in

particular, yet it seems that ‘volume’ (loudness-quietness) was an aspect that Alex

wanted to talk about. It appeared that the experience of varying intensities of loudness

through his movement helped him produce the degree of loudness or quietness he

wanted to more securely and to ‘get a literal sense of what that might be’. This seemed

to suggest he experienced a kinaesthetic feeling of the desired intensity of loudness

without the use of metaphor or exaggeration or without the hard banging often

associated with very loud playing. This could also relate to LMA/BF concept of Weight,

which refers to the way we use the weight of our bodies. Here, Alex seemed to be

sensing the weight of his body rather than using the weight of his body. In this way his

experience of yielding weight into the piano gave him a sense of agency over how he

wanted the music to sound at that particular point and also seemed to allowed him to

sense himself within his own intentions in moving (Hackney 2002: 220).

Alex continued to talk about his experience of phrase junctures and identifying

departure and arrival moments in dialogue unit 6. Significantly, he recounted that he

noticed that the details within a phrase and the way he moved from one phrase to

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another relied on ‘getting the energy right … changing it when necessary’. This added a

new layer of insight into his experience and suggested his use of kinaesthetic imagery

and a sense of motion in conceptualizing the particular features and characteristics of

the phrase that he wanted to bring out, such as the way he made a crescendo in Bar 3

of Diversions, which led to a focal emphasis on the first beat of Bar 4. His use of the

words ‘getting the energy right’ showed the importance of this experience in achieving

his intentions. Alex’s use of these words seemed to express his understanding of

energy as an element of movement necessary to release the sounds he wants to

create. His experience that energy needed to change ‘when necessary’ in a particular

way showed his experience of the interrelationship between forcefulness or Weight, the

release of energy, Effort and Time. He displayed this in his release of energy in his

movement in the first movement/music exercise with the tennis ball (see Figure 7.9,

images 10–12). Here, he suddenly swooped down and up in a figure-of-eight as he

vocalizes Bar 3 of Diversions, seemingly expressing his intention to drive the music

forward with an unexpected surge of energy and a moment of instability. This appears

to give the phrase a sense of alternating lightness and heaviness. Passive Weight:

Limp/Heavy (Hackney 2002: 222).

When Alex comes to discuss the way he experienced the release of energy in

connection with musical phrasing, he describes his experience by referring to one of the

warm-up movement/music exercises: shaping space. In dialogue unit 8, he talks about

how he experienced the exercise by his way of ‘moving of the fingers with the music in

the background’. As he carved a spatial pathway with his hand to express the music, he

appeared to find a connection between what he was hearing and the ‘flow of energy in

all parts of his body’. Here, Alex seems to notice a change in his experience of energy

and flow in his piano performance as a whole-body experience – ‘not just thinking about

your hands at the piano’. His comments seem to suggest that prior to experiencing the

movement exercises he often felt that his hands were separate from the rest of his

body. He continues to explain his experience of this exercise as a starting point for

making a more continuous connection with his whole-body movement and the music,

which he seemed to relate to improved fluency in his piano performance. This seems

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evident when he goes on to talk about his experience of the movement exercise with

the ball.

In dialogue unit 10, he describes his experience of using ‘a physical object to represent

music’ as ‘quite odd and quite abstract’, which seems to suggest that his encounter was

different to what is usual in his world and perhaps even strange. He mentions that this

exercise helped him to memorize the shape of the music he was moving to. Importantly,

he said that physically shaping the music in this way ‘stays in your memory and helps

you connect with the piece’. Here, Alex seems to be using a combination of visual and

sensory imagery to re-experience a clear image of the shape he created in space

through his body movement patterns. What is significant is that he appeared to be able

to hold on to his ideas regarding the shaping of the music, which seemed to help him

find a deeper connection with it.

Within this short extract of the transcript, Alex has already provided me with different

themes that recurred throughout the discussion, each one appearing to illustrate his

experience of the music/movement exercises:

making, keeping a grasp of and implementing musical intention with ease;

connecting with the phrasing;

finding the flow;

shaping phrase and kinaesthetic awareness and imagery;

conceptualizing musical elements through movement;

physicalizing musical concepts and memory; and

releasing energy.

The focus at this stage of my analysis is not only to capture what is crucial in the data

but also to keep in mind the whole story. The themes above not only reflect Alex’s

original words and thoughts but also included my interpretation, captured and reflected

in my understanding of the transcript. For example, the first emergent theme – making,

keeping a grasp of and implementing musical intentions with ease – captured my initial

exploratory comments relating to language use and Alex’s choice to articulate his

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effortlessness to make decisions about how to connect one phrase to another. This

effortlessness was apparent in the interview as Alex expressed what he experienced in

terms of movements. In contrast, the same theme title related directly to the content of

Alex’s discussion, in his own struggle to fully understand the changes in his piano

performance and his embodied connection with the music following the exercises. This

highlights one of the characteristics of a Somatic approach to movement and

experiential learning: the change process can involve confusion during the transition

period as we become aware that our old ways of doing things are being challenged but

as yet we do not have a clear sense of what we are replacing them with (Lewin 1947;

Cummings, Bridgman and Brown 2016: 33–60). In the next extract, Alex talked about

his experience as he struggled to fully grasp and realize any changes in his second

performance of Diversions.

Extract 2: Making connections – distraction, disconnection and blurring

Transcript My Comments

12.

A: I think, because there are so many things and being unusual, it takes a while to sink it. When I did my second performance it was at first, a bit of a distraction because the music, even though it was connected in my mind it was kind of a blur, and I think it would take between half an hour and hour to sit with the piece after doing this stuff for me personally to connect with it. Which is why, on the second performance it hadn’t initially helped because my mind was still refreshing it. Which was a little overbearing at first but given time to let it sink in it would start to become more effective, and of course if you did these types of exercises more often you become more used to it and then you could be able to connect with the piece faster … but

Descriptive: The movement exercises provided a challenge to established ways of doing things at first, making his musical intentions unclear. He lost sight of his intentions – they slipped his memory almost as though he had unlearnt the piece, which was a little overbearing for him. The movement exercises seemed to be an intrusion. Linguistic: Use of the phrasal verb ‘to sink in’ suggests that he hadn’t fully comprehended the idea of how the movement exercises could help him but that he was willing to gradually start to understand what might be happening. Descriptive: He refers to

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13. 14.

yes, that’s how I felt about it.

M: Going back to what you said about the memory thing and the movement connection. Can you tell me a little bit more about that? A: I don’t know, just specific hand movements which, when you start a piece you obviously think about it in quite a mechanical way, whereas with all this movement and the deeper subtext (meaning) of it, it’s less mechanical it’s a more natural feeling and working with the emotion. So I think to make a solid connection between the initial mechanical memory and then the in-depth feeling of it, for me would

movement exercises as being an unusual approach to practising the piano. Linguistic: Use of the term ‘distraction’ suggests that he experienced something that involved overcoming inertia. Thus his second performance could be seen as a process of dismantling establishing fixed ways, and his use of the term ‘refreshing it’ suggests that he was on his way to adapting and attuning to it. Use of term ‘blur’ suggests that the transformational process involved moments of doubt as he struggled to unlearn pre-fixed ways of communicating his intentions. This could refer to the result of unlearning something when it seems as though you take two steps forward and one step back as you try to adapt to a new understanding of something and try to apply it. Descriptive: He appears to see the possibility of starting to learn a piece from a different perspective than what he is used to. He makes a distinction between mechanical preparation and working more on an emotional level. Preparing the body to perform not just awareness of bones, muscles and tendons but awareness of his movement and how he organized

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15. 16. 17.

have taken a little bit more time.

M: Can you explain what you mean by a solid connection? A: Yes, at the moment it’s quite loose, because I’m not used to it and I’ve never done anything like this before with a piece. So it’s odd but it’s very interesting at the same time. It’s been good to work my mind in these ways.

M: In what ways?

his movements to create phrases and relationships with the music that revealed individual style. Linking his experience of the movement exercises to his grasp of memorizing the notes and the musical meaning-making process for him although he mentions that he needed more time to make a deeper connection with this linkage. Descriptive: He recognized his fluid connection with the method. Conceptual: Seems like he finds it challenging to relate his experience to his past experience. Even though he mentions that it is a novel way of working, and shows a willingness to continue. ... (continued in extract 3)

In dialogue unit 12, Alex explained his experience of the movement exercises as ‘a bit

of a distraction’. When it came to his second performance of Diversions, he mentioned

the struggle he had when he talked about his experience of being challenged to engage

with so many new ideas and an unfamiliar way of working. He remarked that ‘it takes

time to sink in’ and that the music had become a ‘kind of a blur’ suggested that he

experienced a period of confusion that prevented him from connecting with and giving

his full attention to the music. He explained why he thought this happened by talking

about his need to take more time to adapt and attune to thinking about music in this way

and recounted his experience as ‘a little overbearing at first’. This seemed to suggest

that Alex found that the exercises challenged his existing ways of doing things.

However, he continues to recount that ‘given time to sink in, it [the movement

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experience] would become more effective’. This seemed to suggest his openness to

new possibilities and this is supported by his comment – ‘if you did these types of

exercises more often you become more used to it and then you could be able to

connect with the piece faster’. Here, Alex seemed to focus on the necessity as a

professional musician to be able to learn pieces quickly and that regularity and

repetition of using the movement/music exercises would be essential in helping him

develop a direct connection between the movement and the music. This highlights one

of the characteristics of a Somatic Movement approach, in that it is necessary to slow

down to undo or change established movement patterns and attend to perceptual and

sensory processes in order to learn new things.

In dialogue unit 14, Alex explained how the direct connection between his movement

and the music could help him in the beginning stages of learning to play a piece of

music by adding to his already established method of thinking ‘about it in quite a

mechanical way’. He explained that through the movement/music exercises he was able

to explore the ‘deeper subtext of it’, employ a ‘more natural feeling’ and ‘work with the

emotion’. Additionally, he mentioned the importance for him of making a ‘solid

connection’ between what he called the ‘initial mechanical memory and the in-depth

feeling of it [the music]’. This suggested that Alex was searching for a secure way of

uniting these two aspects of music performance and that his experience was of

technique and expression as separate entities in the process of his musical meaning-

making. Later on, in dialogue unit 16, Alex mentioned that his experience of making a

connection between the movement/music exercises and uniting technique and

expression in performing the music was ‘quite loose’. He used the word ‘loose’, which

seemed to suggest that he was aware of an insecurity in the way he linked these two

experiences. On the other hand, he could have been drawing attention to his

experience of release from the confinement of his established way of working in ‘a

mechanical way’ and the opportunity he had to experience letting go – combining

technique and expression from the beginning. This ambiguity seemed clear when he

mentioned again that he found the experience of the movement exercises ‘odd’ but at

the same time ‘very interesting’ and ‘good to work in these ways’.

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In this extract, Alex gave me another set of themes, which highlight some of the

potential benefits and problems associated with using a Somatic Movement approach:

initial distraction;

loose connections;

takes time to sink in;

unfamiliarity;

process of change;

transformation;

blurring/clarity of ideas;

dealing with challenges; and

uniting technique and expression.

In the following extract, Alex talked about how he tackled the movement/music

exercises as a way of working with the music.

Extract 3: Making connections: ways of working, feeling comfortable in yourself

and connecting with composer intentions

Transcript My Comments

18.

A: It’s hard to describe. Well, it’s mainly … I don’t know … especially with the phrasing, those big movements … cos a lot of the time with phrasing and dynamics the performer won’t make enough of them when you very much physicalize them especially. First you told me I wasn’t doing it enough and then the second time I did it you suggested to move your arms more freely … be free with the music. I think that helps you become more

Descriptive: He found it helpful to embody the phrasing and dynamics. He relates this to the ‘big movements’ he did (I think he is referring to the light football exercise). He recognizes that perhaps he does not make enough of the dynamics in his playing. He identifies a need to take more risks with dynamic shaping and not play as safe as he usually does. He links this to realizing

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19. 20. 21. 22.

subconsciously connected with the music and be more willing to go to the extremes necessary to express whatever the composer was trying to intend by writing it … which you might at first not do if you’re just looking at the music and playing over it and going … ‘oh it goes a bit louder there a bit quieter there’ but of course when the composer did it, it was very connected to him so by doing these movements, I feel that you’re gaining more connection with the intentions of the composer. M: That’s an interesting insight. A: Some people might not be comfortable with showing all their feelings and things but doing the exercises makes you feel much more comfortable with yourself … willing to show the extremes of the piece that make it a better performance.

M: I wonder what the composer would think of your comments. You mentioned feeling uncomfortable doing this sort of movement activity; how are you able to be open and go with that feeling? A: I wasn’t uncomfortable with doing the movement … I’ve not done a

the composer’s intentions rather than his own. Conceptual: It seems he is thinking about the way he practises dynamics in vague terms. It seems he is unclear about his intentions and to be able to accomplish what he really wants to say. By moving with the music, he seems to feel more of a connection with it and the meaning-making process. Is this a reference to flow of experience and sense of bodily connectivity to the piano that he said he felt? Conceptual: Why does he think that others might be uncomfortable? Was he uncomfortable? In what ways? Is he referring to acceptance of himself, developing confidence, feeling secure in his body to bring about changes in his performance, a willingness to develop an individual voice? Seems to have experienced not feeling comfortable in his own skin. Descriptive: Reports a lack of familiarity rather than feeling

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particular amount of dance in my time. I’ve done a bit of movement-based stuff, especially as I mentioned to you earlier in singing … But no, I’ve never done it on the piano with singing or imagining the music before. Even when you are performing as a singer, you’re not using your body a lot but bending down and up and making sure your body feels right in connection to what you should be doing with your voice, so I’m not uncomfortable doing the movement thing, just the practice of doing it over and over again would be managing to connect it more quickly to the mechanistic elements of the piece

uncomfortable and that this was a new experience for him, especially imagining the music away from the piano. Descriptive: Relating vertical movements to singing and linking the importance of how the body feels when making a connection with the sound that is being produced or created. Emphasis on repeating the movement exercises regularly as a means of speeding up the process of connection and efficacy as a practise method. ... (continued in extract 4)

In dialogue unit 18, Alex related his experience of embodying phrasing ideas and

dynamics as a way of exploring a variety of nuances without restrictions related to

playing them on the piano, such as fingering and the geography of the keyboard.

Clearly, from the way he described his experience of moving with the ball to express the

shaping of the phrases in the music, he noticed some changes in his experience of

amplitude and flow. For example, he talked about being free with the music as it ‘helps

you become more subconsciously connected with the music’ – by this he seemed to be

suggesting that being able to experiment with moving the phrasing and dynamics

encouraged him to use his movement to formulate ideas about the music in a liberated

way. This seemed to relate to a sense of ease and comfort as he appeared not to

control his connection with the music but rather let it happen fluidly by moving away

from his established method of looking at and analysing the score at the piano. He

related his experience of this to his desire to gain ‘more connection with the intentions of

the composer’. This suggested that Alex’s experience the movement exercises seemed

to open up new ways of interacting with others involved in the learning process

suggesting a sense of empathy. He said ‘by doing these movement exercises, I feel

you’re gaining more connection with the intentions of the composer’. He continued to

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explain this by referring to his understanding that a composer appears to be physically

connected to the music he/she creates and that using movement to practise a piece can

give a performer the opportunity to link up with and re-experience those connections

through their own movement, allows new movements to emerge. This seemed to be an

important aspect to Alex, and seemed to suggest that that he experienced the sense of

a co-creative relationship between himself and others or the world.

Later on in the discussion, Alex highlighted that the movement/music exercises gave

him a way of feeling more comfortable with himself. In dialogue unit 20, he mentions

that showing feelings is not always a comfortable thing to do and that doing the

exercises ‘makes you feel much more comfortable with yourself and willing to show the

extremes of the piece that make it a better performance’. Here, Alex appeared to

associate his experience of the movement exercises with the means of developing

confidence, feeling secure enough in his body to bring about changes, and the freedom

to develop an individual voice. By working with the movement exercises, Alex seemed

to have experienced a way of feeling comfortable in his own skin and sense of agency

in being able to express his own feeling through the movement and through the music.

In this extract, Alex provided me with another set of themes:

ease/comfort;

sense of agency;

embodying musical concepts;

being free to experiment with the music;

interaction with others and the world;

expressing feelings; and

relationship or relatedness within self/feeling comfortable in your own skin.

In this final extract Alex talked about how he might apply the Somatic Movement

exercises as a method of practising to his established routine.

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Extract 4: Making connections – application and learner autonomy

Transcript My Comments

24. 25. 26.

A: I think I would sometimes. A lot of pieces … might not suit it especially, something more classical or strictly based but with the contemporary stuff and jazz as well, which is very much my favourite style … after playing through how I would originally. I think it might be even more effective on pieces that I’ve already got to grips with and played a lot and visualizing in my head and being free with movement to help myself express them would be interesting to do. Perhaps we can try some of the exercises with another piece sometime? M: Yes, that would be great. I’ll think about how I can incorporate that into my research plan. Well, thank you very much Alex, we have to finish there. Is there anything you would like to say before I turn the recorder off? A: Just that, I definitely would not have been able to have done the movement exercises without your help because it’s interesting to feel free with your body and a lot of people wouldn’t know actually how to do that. So, it’s good to have an expert, especially just with the breathing and the actual connections … to hear it said to you makes it much clearer because you might not actually be doing it very well if you are trying to do it on your own. So, thanks for that.

Descriptive: He seems unconvinced of the movement method. He mentions that it would not be suitable with certain types of music but seems to be open to trying it with others. Suggests that it may be effective on pieces he already knows. He relates the method to helping him to express his ideas better with pieces he already knows. Conceptual: Why does he think the method is suited to some pieces of music and not others? Descriptive: He talks about needing guidance with the movement exercises. He mentions that feeling free in the body is not always something musicians experience easily, especially in connection with playing the piano. Conceptual: Is his reference to ‘feeling free’ related to the bodily restraint of his experience of established classical music

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performance training?

In dialogue unit 24, Alex talked about his experience in general, about applying the

movement/music exercises to his tool bag of practice methods. He said, ‘a lot of pieces

might not suit it, especially something classical or strictly based’ and recounted that it

might be more suited to ‘contemporary stuff and jazz’. This would have been something

that I would have liked to discuss further but due to lack of time we had to bring the

interview to a close before we could explore this in more detail. Although he mentioned

that he might find the movement exercises more useful in further exploring pieces that

he had already learnt and performed: perhaps by increasing awareness of dynamic

control and balance or by enhancing the clarity of the shape of a phrase. He talked

about ‘visualizing and being free with the movement’ and that to do this with more

confidence he would prefer to use the movement exercises with pieces he had ‘already

got to grips with’.

To round up the interview, Alex talked about his experience of the social interaction

between himself and me as the facilitator. In dialogue unit 26, he said that ‘I definitely

would not have been able to have done the movement exercises without your help’.

This seemed to suggest that he experienced a sense of interaction with the environment

and an awareness of accommodating to the surroundings and other people. In this way,

he seemed to experience the complexity of the situation as a whole. In this extract, Alex

gave me another set of themes to consider:

choice of music to work with movement exercises;

application;

stages of the learning/preparation process to introduce movement exercises;

Somatic Movement exercises as complementary methods;

social interaction;

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co-creative relationships; and

learner autonomy.

So far, I have established a set of emergent themes within the transcript. In the next

section, I develop a chart of how I think these fit together. In line with IPA methods, I

discarded some of those which do not seem important at this stage and fell outside the

scope of my central research question. Essentially, I looked for a means of identifying

patterns in the emergent themes and produced a structure that allowed me to point to

the most significant aspects of Alex’s account and how they related to each other.

7.3.1 Searching for patterns in emergent themes

In order to identify patterns between the emergent themes in Alex’s account, I

developed what can be called super-ordinate themes. These involve putting related

themes together and developing a new name for the cluster (Smith, Flowers and Larkin

2009: 96).

In Alex’s account, there were series of themes around his experience of flow: ‘how

phrases are connected’, ‘finding the flow in the music’, guiding and adjusting releases of

energy’, ‘connecting with composer’s intentions and ‘making, keeping a grasp of and

realizing musical intentions’. There were also themes around his experience of

embodying musical concepts and ideas through movement and kinaesthetic and visual

imagery: ‘how feelings about the music can be expressed kinaesthetically, ‘development

of self-awareness – feeling comfortable in one’s own skin as a performer’, a sense of

ease’, ‘embodying concepts of shaping phrases’, sense of agency, and ‘an aid to

memorization’. Furthermore, there were themes around his experience of challenges:

‘initial distraction’, ‘loose connections’, ‘maintaining equilibrium’, ‘process of change’,

‘clarity of musical phasing ideas’, uniting techniques and expression and

‘transformation’. In addition, there were themes that expressed his experience of

application and autonomy: ‘free choice’, ‘application’, ‘slowing things down – not a quick

fix’, ‘preparing to perform’, ‘social interaction’, co-creative relationships and

‘performer/learner autonomy’.

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At this stage of the analysis, it was clear from the emerging themes that Alex

experienced the benefits and some of the challenges of a Somatic Movement approach

to music-making tasks such as practising and performing musical phrasing. As an

overview, Table 7.1 illustrates the four super-ordinate themes that emerged from the

main study analysis.

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Table 7.1 Super-ordinate themes and themes from Alex’s account

Super-ordinate themes derived from Alex’s experience of making connections in

movement/music workshop 1

Themes Dialogue unit/line Key words

A. Experiencing flow Connecting the musical phrases 4/5 connect the phrases Finding flow in the music 4/9 a continuous flow Feeling flow of energy 8/10 realise the flow of energy Guiding and adjusting releases of energy 6/7–9 getting the energy right Making, grasping and realizing musical choices and intentions 6/5–6 realize the details Connecting with composer’s intentions 18/22 when the composer did it Being free to experiment with musical ideas in new ways 16/4–7 exploring ... it’s odd but good B. Embodiment Expressing feelings 20/5 willing to show how you feel Feeling comfortable in your own skin 22/13 your body feels right Sense of ease and comfort 20/6 you feel more comfortable Shaping phrase, kinaesthetic awareness, imagery and memorization 10/9–10 physicalize an actual shape that stays in your memory Embodying musical phrasing concepts and formulating ideas and making choices 4/7 & 13 to decide how long/to to get a literal sense Conceptualizing musical phrasing choices through movement 4/9–10 with a dip and a rise C. Challenges Unfamiliarity 12/2 being unusual ... it didn’t feel like it was naturally within me Maintaining equilibrium 12/5 a bit of a distraction Loose connections 16/2 I’m not used to it Change process 12/8,16 a little overbearing, kind of blur Transformation 12/14 I’m still refreshing it ... takes time to sink in D. Application and autonomy Not a quick fix, no ready-made solutions 12/1 Takes time to sink in ... there are so many things to think about Movement exercises as a complement to 24/7 more effective on a piece I’ve established practice methods already got to grips with Learner autonomy/ co-creative relationships 26/3 without your help, I couldn’t have

done it

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Essentially, a Somatic Movement approach involves a process of discovery and an

investigative process on the music making task and moment at hand. As Alex

remarked, it is ‘being free to explore musical ideas in new ways’ and being willing to let

go of some of his preconceived ideas and ask new questions regarding musical

phrasing ideas; being aware of the flow of energy, developing confidence, ease and a

sense of agency, preparing the body to perform.

Building on the discussion of the findings, I returned to analysing Alex’s requested

follow-up performance of Diversions and what he had to say about his experience in

applying the movement exercises to his practice routine outside the research context.

This gave him the opportunity to take responsibility for applying the methods in his own

way and to deepen his understanding through autonomous learning. In addition, this

provided a chance for me and for him to observe any changes across his performances

of the same piece. Further, this allowed me to look for recurring themes across his

accounts, allowing potential new themes to emerge.

7.4 Analysis of the follow-up performance of Diversions

In this section, I focused on three particular moments that Alex talked about quite a lot

after his third performance of Diversions:

Bar 11 to the first beat of Bar 12;

beats 3, 4, 5 and 6 of bar 1 and beats 2, 3, 4 and 5 of Bar 2;

Bar 3 leading to the first beat of Bar 4.

This offered a means of highlighting aspects that were important to him from his point of

view and in his own words. This follow-up performance took place three days after the

initial music/movement workshop, during which period Alex asked if he could take some

time to apply the movement/music exercises to practising the piece on the piano.

In preparation for Alex’s third performance of Diversions, I conducted a condensed body

movement warm-up using the same exercises used in the first workshop followed by

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Alex’s performance on the piano. He spent 20 seconds preparing himself before

beginning to play in his first performance; the second time, he spent 4 seconds

preparing in silence and seemed to be more relaxed (see Figure 7.2). This third time, he

spent 6 seconds and seemed to be very relaxed and adopted a less formal, more

easeful poise at the keyboard. As mentioned previously, this could have been as a

result of knowing the piece more thoroughly or of feeling more comfortable in front of

the video camera. However, there was a difference in his demeanour that Alex also

noted in the follow-up interview. (See Figure 7.15).

a) First performance b) Second performance

(20 seconds preparation time) (4 seconds preparation time)

c) Third performance

(6 seconds preparation time)

Figure 7.2 Observation of Alex’s silent preparatory movements (3)

Here, there was a difference in the movement of Alex’s head, shoulders, back and

torso; particularly noticeable was the position and movement of his arms and hands.

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Observing the movements in each case, the placement of his head in the third

performance appeared to be less strained, and his shoulders, back and torso showed a

natural alignment in that his positioning is not static or forced as in the first and second

performance. His head seemed to float on the top of his spine and his shoulders and

elbows were dropped. Although in each performance he made adjustments to his

positioning, continual dynamic changes of weight and space were more obvious in his

third performance. In this performance, he clearly moved his torso backwards, widening

his back and bringing his arms and hands with him in a loosely clasped fashion. Moving

slightly forward, he opened his hands to just over his body width, which also released

his elbows and allowed his shoulders to drop even more. Continuing to move his torso

forward, he made a curved reversal movement, almost like a figure-of-eight with his

hands, bringing them in to the centre of the keyboard in preparation to play the first

chord. There was a visible difference in the lower placement of his elbows here as he

leaned further in towards the keyboard as he played the first chord. Even though a

sense of relaxed anticipation seemed to be present in Alex’s second performance, in his

third performance there seemed to be a significant change in the release of tension in

his body as he revealed the first chord. His shoulders are not hunched, his hands are

not clenched and his elbow, wrist and shoulder joints seem to give the appearance of

having space in them and of being unbound through belonging to his torso. Alex noticed

these alignment changes too.

At this point, I turn my attention to the moments in the follow-up performance I

mentioned at the beginning of this section. The first of these is Bar 11 into the first beat

of Bar 12. Figure 7.3 shows Alex’s movements at the piano during his performance of

this extract.

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Figure 7.3 Bar 11 to first beat of Bar 12 of Diversions

Here, Alex related his experience of the juncture of phrases between Bars 11 and 12 of

Diversions. He reflects:

In the last interview I had, in Bar 11 and 12, I thought it was more fluctual in the tempo and things but now I’ve done it a little bit more and considered hand-phrasing and all that – I’ve thought of it more to be like a musical box as it starts to decline in dynamics and sustain the same tempo which is then interrupted by the low C in the bass. (dialogue unit 4)

Alex’s comment suggests that the ‘hand-phrasing’ exercise (carving the shape of the

phrase in space with the hand) was helpful in deciding how to express and practise this

phrase juncture. This exercise relates to one of the warm-up exercises where Alex

carved his way through space with his hand as a way of expressing the qualities of the

music. This may have been a successful exercise as it allowed Alex the opportunity to

accommodate himself to the environment he found himself in. It thus gave him the

chance to start to feel comfortable and at ease. It seemed that his initial thoughts to

vary the tempo changed and that his decision to keep the tempo steady was influenced

by embodying the shape of the phrase in terms of tempo and dynamics. He said:

Before I was playing it with wide variation in tempo. I thought maybe I should speed up or slow down as I was leading down to the low C but now when I look at it, especially when it starts to become quieter at bar 11 and to make the interruption of the low C more dramatic, I decided to keep the

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tempo exactly the same. (dialogue unit 8)

Alex’s use of the metaphor ‘musical box’ to describe the sound of the music suggested

that he experienced this section in a mechanical way, almost like clockwork in that the

tempo is regular. Yet his reference to a decline in dynamics seems to imply an

inconsistency in the mechanism. His recollection of the sound of a musical box also

seemed to have provided him with a source of visual and kinaesthetic imagery of the

movement of the mechanism that produces sound by the use of a set of pins placed on

a revolving cylinder which pluck the tuned teeth of a steel comb. His wish to keep this

section restrained seems to be linked to a desire to catch the listener unawares with the

sforzando low C in the bass at Bar 12. He remarked:

It’s more about the surprise. Instead of the audience just thinking ‘oh it’s getting a bit faster and a bit louder there’s obviously going to be a change’ – if you keep it still and consistent, it’s not giving anything away, making the extremely loud low C a surprise and a good impact. (dialogue unit 8)

Later in the discussion, Alex talked about how his experience of the movement/music

exercise with the light football helped him shape this particular section of the music at

the piano.

When I used the larger ball I was doing lots of over dramatized movements to represent the shape so a lot of the time, over the triplets and semiquavers in the right hand, I’d been moving quite directly. I found that naturally, even though I hadn’t performed it like that on the piano before, I made a connection with moving the ball more or less to certain places. After I had done that I thought ‘oh yeah, when I moved like that it worked with the shape of the phrase’ which started to become quite instinctive after a while. (dialogue unit 10)

Here, Alex’s description of his experience suggested that this movement exercise

helped him to feel the rhythmic shape of the phrase by giving him the opportunity to

explore ideas in a way that he had not been able to at the piano. This could have been

as a result of the complex rhythms which he had not yet got to grips with or the

restrictions he experienced when reading the score at the piano. Embodying the shape

of the phrase seemed to have allowed him the freedom to experiment more freely and

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take more risks regarding the dynamics and the rhythmic vitality of this section, thus

allowing him to develop a sense of agency. Alex utilized sensory information which

included underlying movement principles and organization, kinaesthetic reference

points and an improved sequencing of the body through space and time. His enhanced

embodied awareness added a sense of clarity to his phrasing choices as the piano

when confronted with challenges to his regular piano technique problems. With regard

to applying his experience to playing the piano, he said:

When you emphasize your body and parts of the body in a performance way there’s more to it than you would have thought and then you start to get the confidence to do things you wouldn’t have done before and then you come to realize what you have to do to help you with your performance. (dialogue unit 12)

Making new kinaesthetic discoveries and connections can be revelatory for performers.

Alex noticed places in his sensory awareness that needed further attention. He realized

his ‘shoulders were crunched, unhelpfully’ and that ‘instead of just one body part moving

then another, I felt aware of how the energy was changing in my body and moving at

the piano’. Here, he seemed to experience a moment of transformation of his movement

experience of shaping the phrase with a ball to his performance at the piano through re-

experiencing the amplitude of his movements and the movement of the ball from one

place to another. This seemed to make a difference to the sound in terms of a more

fluid melodic line in the right hand and more clarity regarding his intention to keep a

piano dynamic in the triplet on the last beat in Bar 11 before suddenly shooting out his

left hand to play the loud accented low C in the bass.

In the final part of the discussion, Alex talked about his experience of the feeling of

tension and release in the music and how he related this to a feeling of expanding and

contracting in his body. Here, he talked about the first four-bar phrase, which he broke

down into two sets of two bars:

The first bar is all in piano and has a lot of pedal all the way through it so the last four notes are held and create a dissonance. I’d say it was quite an

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enclosed feeling there and then when it starts to go up to the C♯, D♯ E in the second bar, that’s an open feeling there then Bars 3 and 4 gradually get louder and I would say that the dissonance generally starts to release over these two bars, starting very close to the body and then going up higher with the melody in the left hand. That’s quite a release especially as there aren’t any sort of semitonal major 7th dissonances – it’s all 2nds and major 6ths and 7ths in the left hand, so that’s quite an expansion of the phrase and then it goes back to contraction for the second phrase. (dialogue unit 14)

This seemed to relate to his experience of starting to feel ‘comfortable in his skin’ and

an embodied sense of the motion of the music and his musical intentions. His reference

to opening and closing seems to suggest that he felt a sense of going somewhere with

the music – a feeling of ‘spatial pull’ which was nuancing his expressive quality of his

movement and his playing (see Hackney 2002: 222 for details of ‘spatial pull’ in

changing the shape of the body). In order to access further details about Alex’s thoughts

and feelings about his experience of the movement exercises as a method of practising,

the next section presents the findings of the IPR interviews. These video-assisted

interviews were conducted a week after the music/movement workshops and gave me

an opportunity to understand Alex’s experiences in more depth, as he remembered

them to have occurred at the time. Furthermore it was a chance to learn something new

about his experience of the music/movement workshop process: things he had no time

to say in the follow-up interviews, things that he forgot and things that may not have

seemed appropriate to talk about at the time, such as his feelings, images, thoughts,

sensations, fears and doubts.

The findings from the IPR session also helped me reappraise the themes already

identified (see Table 7.1), enriching my analysis and interpretation and deepening my

understanding of the complexity of Alex’s experience as he related it. These are

processes that are usually inaccessible via other data collection methods. As

participants and researchers work together to build a rapport, they are often thought to

work towards a set of shared understandings that help to shape the meaning of what

transpires between them. IPR takes this context into account and allows the researcher

and the participant to observe and explore the interactions occurring within the

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workshop, lending both participant and researcher perspectives on the interpretation of

the conversational process (Larsen, Flesaker and Stege 2008: 20).

7.5 Reappraisal of themes using IPR

This section focuses on specific moments across the video-recorded music/movement

workshops. In this first extract, Alex recalled his thoughts about the way he played the

opening bars of Diversions during his first performance. In line with the IPR method, my

analysis highlights aspects that seemed to have been important to him at the time. I

have highlighted what I considered to be key words or phrases in bold italics.

Now that I listen to it the top line doesn’t seem voiced as I thought it would have been. (dialogue unit 2)

He goes on to talk about how this changed in his second performance:

I think I remember actually in the second performance, especially with the phrasing that line became more apparent … it was different. I didn’t think it was very obvious at the time. (dialogue unit 2)

In the next extract, Alex comments as he watches his first performance of Diversions

before he did the movement/music exercises:

To a certain extent, I can see myself using body tension but then I guess most pieces you are taught, you move your shoulders, because even just for functional reasons, your forearms can get tired if you don’t release your shoulders. (dialogue unit 16)

Here, he considers the functional movement of his body as he watches himself play

Diversions, but also thinks about how his body relates to the harmonic language used in

the piece:

You’re also considering your body to represent harmonies in the piece. (dialogue unit 16)

Although Alex is commenting on his first performance here, before the movement/music

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exercises, he seems to have a sense of embodying the harmony of a piece of music.

However, as the IPR interview was conducted after the workshops, his comment could

also reflect his experience of the exercises, suggesting that he has adopted a physical

way of conceptualizing musical harmony. As he continues to watch the video, he

comments on how he shapes the first phrase of Diversions at the piano:

There is phrasing movement but the voicing is a little boring. (dialogue unit 16)

The way Alex describes his performance as having ‘phrasing movement’ suggests that

he notices his attempt to give the phrasing a sense of direction or motion but appears to

be dissatisfied by the lacklustre manner in which he places emphasis on certain notes

within the harmonic structure. This is evident from his comment that the ‘voicing is a

little boring’, which identifies a moment in his performance that, from his point of view,

he would now want to differentiate better.

Alex comments that his second performance, after the movement/music exercises,

‘wasn’t as accurate’ as his first performance. Here he is talking about the differences he

perceived in his body movement at the piano:

Directly I see I’m using a slightly less conventional movement. I’m moving my body around more … I’m moving my hand more in the first phrase…it’s more interesting I must say … my back is a little less straight. (dialogue unit 23)

Here, Alex notices how he has changed the way he usually moves at the piano. He

observes how this helps him negotiate his body around the piano keyboard, suggesting

that he experienced more freedom in his movements, allowing his hands to be more

active and his spine more flexible. He continues to talk about how he felt confused as

he tried to experiment with the shaping of the first phrase by attempting to introduce

things he had done in the movement exercises:

I’m taking a little bit more time here … which may not be appropriate but I think the things I’d done in the movement exercises were going round in

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my head and they were all going round at the same time and I didn’t know exactly what to do. (dialogue unit 23)

Here, Alex seems willing to take risks regarding his interpretation of the music despite

being uncertain and slightly bewildered by this process. He mentions how he tried to

incorporate his experience of the movement exercises into his playing:

It’s all about thinking of moving my body … using the ball and feeling the tension of the elastic band … using them all to feel the weight and not just play from the fingers but have a good weighted feel and let every sensation flow into the music. (dialogue unit 25)

He also discusses how he used the movement exercises during the time he had to

practise between the second and third performance. Here he remembers one of his

favourite things to do:

Feeling the muscles in the body and the contractions and how I would represent the harmony and tension, release and dissonance … and then looking at the music, using the movement of the hands in space to represent the timbre and just trying one bit at a time to really think, yes, that’s what I really want and see and feel what it sounds like and then trying to play it with what was in my mind. (dialogue unit 43)

Later he talks about the differences he noticed in how he played the last note of the

phrase on the first beat of Bar 12 of Diversions (the low C in the bass):

It was a little louder … it’s an accented note, a sforzando, but I especially think moving around with the ball really allowed me to feel the weight a lot more not just seeing it as an accented note but feeling it as a very heavy weight. (dialogue unit 26)

When he came to discuss changes in his musical intentions regarding the shaping of

the phrases and fluctuation of tempo he said:

It was sort of less linear … you know after those two opening bars maybe a little break … I was thinking, is the tempo going to change but instead of just one thing and another it became more blended but I felt more aware of how the energy was changing especially in my body and moving on the piano. (dialogue unit 28)

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He refers to the phrasing contours he wrote on the score and points out:

Sometimes it would be a smooth transition, which I felt the tension moving in my body and I see myself doing it here. I knew what I was doing. I knew I wanted to stop it here (at the end of Bar 4) and that there was going to be a little pause. (dialogue unit 41)

Additionally, he talks about how he noticed a difference in the ‘more exotic’ way he used

dynamics. When I asked him what he meant by exotic he laughed and said:

Much more variation and it’s going round in my mind … a more open approach to the music. (dialogue unit 32)

Alex’s comments so far seem to confirm that he experienced differences in his playing

and noticed a sense of greater security and a more playful approach to implementing

his musical phrasing choices through his experience of the movement exercises. In

particular he refers to certain aspects of his experience of moving his body in relation to

his performance of the music such as transference of weight, changes of energy and

the sensation of flow. In the following extracts, he talks about his experience of the

movement exercises away from the piano and how he related his experience to the

music and his performance at the piano. Here, as he watches the video-recording of

himself doing the exercises, he talks about the first warm-up exercise that involved

using his hand/s to trace the shape of a musical phrase in space and the importance he

attaches to the flow of energy through the body:

One of the key things I remember thinking about at the time was sort of like the reverse role of the conductor … not the conductor using the force of the music to drive the musicians but allowing the force that’s already been created (by the music) to flow through you … I remember feeling the physical feeling of music as this sustenance especially passing it from hand to hand to hand… it’s all about letting the energy flow through your body making sure it’s a smooth transition from one thing to another … I think it can take over in ways that you may not have considered before. (dialogue unit 5)

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He continues to explain his experience of the second warm-up exercise, which involved

expanding and contracting his body in response to the change of chords that I played

on the piano.

At the beginning I can’t remember feeling that much but especially when it got faster and I started to get more into it … I simply just contracted or expanded (my body) … I blended the two together. When I perceived a higher pitch and a more open sound, I was opening and closing my fingers, especially in the changing of timbre in the high register because … your digits are the most detailed part of your body and that controls the most detailed part of the sound as a pianist. (dialogue unit 6)

Next, Alex goes on to talk about his discomfort during the movement exercise in which

he used a tennis ball to identify and shape the departure and arrival of phrases in the

space around him while vocalizing the score:

I admit to feeling a little uncomfortable … it didn’t feel like it was naturally within me or at least it didn’t feel like it was so much under my control which was something I wasn’t used to … I remember feeling most uncomfortable. I felt a little odd because it was a new sensation. The second time I did it I felt more restrained … I think I was just trying to be more comfortable with myself which probably wasn’t as useful as I let myself go a little bit more the first time I did it (dialogue unit 7). I wasn’t doing a very good job of it. So, it was definitely a bit of a distraction to have to sing it because I was focusing too much on trying to get it right. (dialogue unit 8)

In the next extract, Alex talks about the movement exercise in which he traced his

interpretation of the shape of the phrasing in the space around him with a light football

while imagining the music:

I think it was probably one of the most effective activities of getting into the music as after doing that I could even, I could feel, I can feel it in my body now even. I remember doing that and it’s stayed with me and it definitely stayed with me for the performances afterwards. (dialogue unit 8)

He goes on to say how he found re-experiencing body movement sensations through

using sensory imagery particularly helpful in his second performance at the piano:

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I found it useful to get the energies because the notated rhythm is distracting … using the ball with no (external) sound you can just imagine it as the energy flows of the piece. Of course, every now and then I am moving the ball almost exactly how the notes go which is useful but using different levels, different amounts of expression to represent either volume or feelings or both. (dialogue unit 8)

He mentions how doing the ball exercise helped him explore dynamic emphasis and

variation:

I would move the ball with more lift if there was quiet quavers … I would throw it down on the ground for a low loud note or if there was a rest I would throw it in the air or bounce it once with a quick action. (dialogue unit 9)

He continues to explain how he experienced the tension and release in his body as a

result of responding to the harmonic language rather than dynamics:

I felt tension in my body but I don’t think that was dynamic I think that was more due to harmonic changes … when there was more dissonant chords I felt more of a release … on the aspect of tension, I think that’s more of a detail of my shoulders because if there was more release my shoulders would have been more relaxed but as you can see I crunch my shoulders at the piano but as I move around … not exactly dancing around the room my body shape is changing. I’m bending my legs and straightening using a good 2–3 metres span from left to right [here he is referring to the amount of space he used in the room]. (dialogue unit 11)

Later he talks about how using the ball helped him experience a physical pathway

through the music:

I imagined there was a path through the music and the ball was in a blend of following that path as well as shaping it … so, there was already a path in the music that had taken in my mind because I’d played Diversions before. The ball was helping shape it a bit more adding a bit more emphasis and giving more flow to the piece. (dialogue unit 13)

Continuing to discuss the tension and release in the piece, Alex talks about his

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experience of the movement exercise that involved using a Thera-Band to embody his

experience of moments of tension and release in the piece while imagining the music:

This is quite a more direct input to harmony focus and tension especially in the stretch, I’m stretching it (the Thera-Band) in different directions so there’s a horizontal … maybe … and a wider core, there’s up and down which can be at any level. I even remembered putting it on my knee and stretching it … that might have been an extra dissonant chord because I’m trying to incorporate my whole body with the tension. (dialogue unit 14)

So far, Alex has provided me with the following new themes to add to those already

established (see Table 7.1):

feeling tension and release, comfort and ease in the body (dialogue units 11,16,

25 and 41);

ease of functional, expressive movement at the piano (dialogue units 16 and 23);

phrasing movement (dialogue units 16);

feeling the weight of the music (dialogue units 25 and 26);

multi-directional and multi-levelled movement (dialogue units 14 and 28);

blending (dialogue units 6,13 and 28);

re-experiencing movement sensations (dialogue units 8 and 13); and

imagination and sensory imagery (dialogue units 8 and 13).

At this point, I introduce the IPR interview data from the third music/movement

workshop during which Alex explored Beethoven’s Piano Sonata in C Minor Opus 10

No.1. This provided further opportunity to deepen the study and to investigate Alex’s

experience of a movement approach to a piece of music from a different time period. It

was Alex’s decision to use this particular Beethoven Sonata as it was a piece he was

working on for an exam at the end of term. As it happened, this provided a contrast to

March’s contemporary piano solo Diversions and gave Alex an opportunity to try out a

Somatic Movement approach as a means of practising and improving a piece with

which he was already familiar and that he was going to perform in front of an audience.

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This also gave Alex autonomy to choose which piece he wanted to work and the agency

to decide how he was going to approach it from his reflection on his previous

performance of this piece.

Alex chose to work on the first movement of the Beethoven because even though he

has already played this piece in a recital, he said that there were certain aspects he

wanted to improve such as a sense of longer more shapely lines in the phrasing and

better control over balancing the weight of the voicing. In a discussion prior to the

workshop, he mentioned particular sections that he would like to work on with respect to

these aspects. One of these sections was from Bars 48–56 and another was from Bars

56–63 (Figure 7.4, which includes Alex’s markings on the score).

a) b)

Figure 7.4 Bars 48–56 (a) and 56–63 (b) Beethoven Sonata in C Minor Op.10 No.1 Edited by Barry

Cooper 2007: ABRSM Publications

Later in the discussion, Alex told me that his musical phrasing intentions regarding Bars

56–63 were to keep the left hand delicate and as quiet as possible, maintaining a

continuous tempo and trying to preserve a sense of calm stillness, while the melody in

his right hand sang flowingly over the top ‘in a lovely long phrase’. Additionally, he

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mentioned his intentions for shaping Bars 48–56 in terms of ‘trying to head towards the

last note of the phrase: the E♭ in the bass in the first beat in Bar 56’ and in trying to

keep the movement in the five note motif in the right hand of bars 53–55 contained in

terms of dynamics, ‘trying to go up (in loudness) and down and come back all within

one movement’. He also mentioned bringing out the texture of the two voices in the left

hand from Bars 48–56 but at this stage his decision was to keep ‘a nice still left hand’.

After doing the third music and movement workshop, which was based on the Beethoven

sonata, Alex recalled his experience of the movement/music exercises as a means of

improving the aspects he mentioned and in implementing his musical phrasing choices in

the piece. Here, he commented on the opening of the sonata as he viewed the video-

recording of his performance at the piano before doing the movement exercises:

I noticed myself, even before the movement exercises, perhaps finding the tension … starting from the core and leaning in. (dialogue unit 4)

When he came to discuss Bars 56–63 regarding the balancing of the right and left hand

he said:

There were interesting sensations here because I’m trying to keep my left hand and also the left side of my body completely still whereas the right shoulder with the melody was rocking around more, which makes sense … starting out from the core but sending out completely different muscle messages to each side as I try to keep the left side of my body stable and needing to be more supple and able to move in my right side. (dialogue unit 6)

This is a new theme and seemed to suggest that Alex noticed how a sense of total body

connection can be initiated from his core at the piano. His experience also seemed to

suggest he noticed a sense of autonomy between his hands and arms and his torso as

he tried to keep one side of his body and the need to keep his right side more flexible.

Further, his experience could suggest that he felt fluid in his breathing and economy of

movement as he mentioned that he tried to use only the necessary muscles with the

minimum expenditure of energy. Further still, this could suggest that he was applying the

sensory imagery experienced in the movement/music exercises to implementing his

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intentions at the instrument. This could resonate with aspects of Skinner Releasing

Technique (SRT) that we explored in the warm-up and in particular with regard to

alignment and autonomy (See Appendix O and Skinner et al. 1979). This could have

been as a result of the exercise that used the light football (Exercise 2). During this

exercise, Alex explored the qualities of the music through shaping his movement with the

ball as he imagined the music, embodying his intentions for the dynamics, tempo

changes, agogic nuance and so on. In this way, he seemed to be engaged with a whole

body experience as a ‘dynamic network of energies’ (Skinner et al. 1979), which he could

applied in a unified way with his work with the ball. This may have given him the

opportunity to free his imagination, let go of preconceived ideas and use the kinaesthetic

images that came to him spontaneously rather than in applying a pre-given image learnt

by rote to express a certain musical quality or mood. A common example of this could be

the image of a raindrop dripping down the windowpane often given to students learning

Chopin’s so called ‘Raindrop’ Prelude, Op.28, No.15, which is noted for its repeated A♭

that appears throughout the piece. In a previous conversation, Alex mentioned that the

exercise with the ball was very effective in helping him connect his movement with the

music and his intentions. The link with Skinner’s work here is that although the

experience of images that come to students spontaneously they can be very much in line

with the individual student’s kinaesthetic awareness. Even in the case of a given image,

as in the ‘Raindrop’ Prelude example, the individual would appear to experience an

individual version. This seemed to reflect the ideas that Alex was working on in the

Beethoven sonata at that time and in a way, seemed to suggest that he was using his

imagination to improvise on the given images he had pre-fixed, such as the ‘rocking

around of the melody’ making them personally relevant to the situation he found himself

in (Skinner et al. 1979). In terms of SRT, this could suggest that Alex experienced a

sense of freedom and autonomy as he was carried into his own creative learning

processes.

As Alex continued to watch the video-recording, he revisited the idea of multi-directional

movement and spatial pulls (where the body intends to go) and commented on how he

expected his phrasing in the right hand to have a longer line:

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I expected to keep the length to keep it flowing … I’m not sure if side-to-side, forward and backward helps but going forward sometimes helps me throw the weight into my hands but I try to keep it more circular … just swaying to keep a relaxed motion. (dialogue unit 14)

In the following extracts, Alex talked about his experience of the movement/music

exercises away from the piano. He revisited themes from previous interviews and

introduced a new aspect focused on his connection with his breath with regard to the first

movement warm-up exercise, which was derived from a LMA/BF exercise (Hackney

2002: 56). As information for the reader, and because the language used in Somatic

Movement is very important as it can influence the way things are received, this is what I

said to guide Alex to guide him through the breathing exercise:

Find a comfortable place and position to start from. Feel the support of the ground

beneath you and release your weight into it. Begin to notice that you are continually

filling and emptying your body with breath. Be aware of the experience of growing and

shrinking. Your body shape is subtly flowing and changing, supported by your breath.

Confirm for yourself that you are not holding any unnecessary tension, let go of all the

tension that is not needed. Direct your attention to breathing into different parts of

your body: your toes, ankles, shins, calves, knees, thighs, hips, gluts, lower back,

stomach, chest, shoulders, arms, elbows, wrists, fingers, neck, skull, face, your skin.

You might touch your skin to bring your attention to the sensation. Confirm that you

can feel the emptying and filling clearly. (Hackney 2002: 56)

Recalling his experience of this breathing exercise, Alex said:

I started sitting on the floor breathing, filling my body up, feeling what it does to the muscles, tension in the shoulders and the back. Even though I’m not literally breathing into my ankles or my neck it is something that I link tension to and become more aware of the relationship between my body parts. (dialogue unit 20)

Alex mentioned that this exercise would be useful to help him alleviate performance

anxiety by making him feel ‘more relaxed before a performance’ and by ‘increasing

muscular sensation and body movement control’ (dialogue unit 24). He also explained

that ‘it’s interesting to think about a skin tension because you can have a skin tension that

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is a different level to a muscle tension’ (dialogue unit 26). Continuing on the theme of

breath, he explained the feeling of relating the sensation of connecting his whole-body

with parts of his body by saying:

I use my breath just in the chest and slowly going each body part at a time I move it throughout my body… expanding my chest from my core all the way into the outer limbs … adding more and more sensation as I get used to the feeling. (dialogue unit 28)

He also mentioned that he was becoming freer with the movement exercises;

whereas before ‘it was a little strange now it isn’t strange, now it’s just relaxing’

(dialogue unit 30).

In the following extracts, Alex talked about his experience of the movement/music

exercises directly related to the Beethoven sonata. As he continued to watch the video-

recording, he talked about how he explored the departure, arrival and juncture of musical

phrases during the movement exercise with the tennis ball while vocalizing the music:

At the beginning I use it (the tennis ball) simply as a direction of the line of the phrase, also using it like a baton and throwing things around and bringing it down to represent lower energies. I’ve decided here (Bars 48–56: see Figure 7.17a) to sing the left hand part of the music … that’s interesting especially since the left hand is more continuous … I decided that this was the most important thing to represent the phrasing. (dialogue unit 45)

I also noticed that swapping the ball from hand to hand is not so much to do with direction but to do with tension in the body so when I feel there is more tension in the right hand part I’ll move it (the ball) into the right hand and think about not just about the arm but the tension going into the chest and the muscles in that side of the body. (dialogue unit 45)

In the next extract, Alex describes his experience of exploring a particular degree of

detachedness in the way he wanted to play the staccato chords in the right hand from

Bars 158–168:

I wanted those chords to sound like raindrops falling down so I used my hand that wasn’t holding the ball as a base to bounce off … this was a good way to visualize the phrasing that I’d already decided … to embody it, to strengthen my connection with the tension and the

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feeling. (dialogue unit 49)

Here, Alex appeared to be able to transform the movement metaphor, falling raindrops,

into a kinaesthetic sensation of bouncing the ball against his hand in a certain manner,

which in turn helped him to achieve his musical intentions for performing this moment in

the music at the piano. This suggested that Alex was able to use the kinaesthetic image

of the movement he had experienced and transform that sensation into sound at the

piano by re-experiencing the feeling of doing the movement.

Next, Alex went on talk further about his experience of the movement exercise with the

light football, tracing the shape of the phrases in space while imagining the music. In

particular, he mentioned his use of levels:

I was keeping the ball low to the ground to mean low velocity … how fast I hit the keys … I bounced the ball up and down because even at a quieter volume I can be harsh and strong … I can feel the tension in my chest and my stomach just by moving it … I was able to create harmonic flavours of sound… yes something to keep it flowing instead of just moving in squares. I also bring the ball back down to represent the silences. (dialogue unit 51)

Here, he relates his experience directly to the left hand ostinato figure from bars 56–63:

I try to keep it flowing but level and continuous from bar 56. I start to move the ball up and down more as I grow and again moving it to the ground as I stop the left hand completely at Bar 76 as the right hand does a broken arpeggio going up. (dialogue unit 53)

He talks about the same section using the movement exercise with the Thera-Band:

Here, I am using it to show the small phrases within the long ones as well, again thinking about the decay of how fast the sound of the notes decay on the piano and bringing it (the Thera-Band) in and out as sounds someway evolve and dissolve. (dialogue unit 55)

This seemed to suggest that Alex experienced a sense of where he wanted to take the

music, what he wanted to say and how he wanted to say it. This seemed to reveal a

sense of performer agency and aspects about Alex’s own personal movement sphere,

his kinaesphere, and his approach to the sounds he wanted to create realize his musical

phrasing intentions (see aspect of Space in Hackney 2002: 223). When Alex came to

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describe how his experience of the movement exercises had changed his second

performance one of the main things he noticed was:

Simply the movement of my hands has become more like my movement with the ball … as I move my left hand up and down on the keyboard it isn’t so vertical it’s more conductorly, more fluid using a figure-of-eight movement very subtly just in the placement of my hands. (dialogue unit 62)

Another change he noticed was economy of his movement. He said:

I didn’t feel like I had to think as much … making it more effortless and less tension in my hands (dialogue unit 62) … the tempo was more level and I didn’t fluctuate as much which is what I wanted to do … I seem to be moving in a way to prepare myself for what is coming in the music. I seem to be more in control of my movements, not moving less but doing it slower before I was flowing quite quickly at some points not perhaps because I’m more relaxed I don’t need to do it as much. I do move but it’s less jerky and it goes with the musical lines a little bit more together with my breathing. I am more aware of where things are and it flows more. (dialogue unit 67 and 71)

The new themes Alex has provided in his discussion about his experience of the

movement exercises and his exploration of the Beethoven sonata are:

breath and breathing;

imagination

whole-body/body parts connection;

skin tension;

kinaesthetic sensation;

qualities of movement (harsh, strong, jerky, smooth); and

economy of movement.

Recurring themes include:

tension and release;

ease and comfort

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agency

blending;

embodiment;

multi-directional and multi-levelled movement;

movement imagery and sensory imagery;

imagination; and

fundamental/muscular/expressive movement.

Next, I present a comprehensive table of emergent themes from across the interviews

(see Table 7.2). This helped me to see what connections there were across accounts,

how a theme in one account could help to illuminate others and which themes were the

most convincing. In turn, this gave me the opportunity to extract the essence of Alex’s

accounts of his experience and provided a sense of completion by capturing the most

important things he wanted to say about his experience and a suitable ordering of those

things. Additionally, it gave me a chance to consider the validity of my findings, place

my work in a wider context and engage in systematic dialogue between my findings and

selected literature.

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Table 7.2 Comprehensive table of super-ordinate themes (cont’d over the next four sides)

Comprehensive table of super-ordinate themes derived from Alex’s experience of making

connections in music/movement workshop 1, 2 and 3

Super-Ordinate themes Workshop Key words and phrases

A. Embodiment: Sensory awareness, breath, energy flow, tension and release, Sensory awareness 1/25/1: It’s about thinking of moving my body 1/25/3: I have a good weighted feel 1/26/3: Seeing it as an accented note but feeling it as a very heavy weight 3/49/5: I visualise the phrasing... embody it 3/32/2: Thinking about the legs as lungs is quite interesting 1/8/13: I can feel it in my body even now 1/13/1: Imagining a path through the music 3/6/9: Starting from the core but sending out completely different muscle messages to each side of my body 3/20/6: Filling my body up with breath 3/20/8: Not literally breathing into my ankles 3/20/10: Aware of the relationship between my body parts 1/5/5: A physical feeling of music as sustenance 1/8/11: Using different levels, different amounts of expression to represent volume or feelings or both 1/10/9-10: Physicalize an actual shape that stays in your memory 3/66/6: Memorised not simply as the notes but as sensations 3/28/1-4: I use my breath … I move it through my body … from my core all the way into the outer limbs

Cont’d

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Table 7.2 Comprehensive table of super-ordinate themes (cont’d)

1/4/7 & 13: To get a literal sense 1/16/4: Considering your body to represent harmonies 3/51/1: I was keeping the ball low to mean low velocity 3/51/2: I bounced the ball up and down … harsh and strong … I was able to create harmonic flavours of sound 3/55/29: Thinking about the decay of notes bringing the Thera-Band in and out as sounds evolve and dissolve 1/4/9-10: With a dip and a rise 1/43/4: Using the movement of the hands to represent timbre 3/6/8: The right shoulder with the melody was rocking around 3/14/5: Throwing the weight into my hands Energy flow 3/51/16: Keep it flowing instead of just moving in squares … imagine It as the energy flows of the piece 1/4/5: Connect the phrases … with a break or smooth transition 1/8/10: Realise the flow of energy 1/25/4: Let every sensation flow into the music 1/5/4: Allowing the force of the music to flow through you 1/8/8: Using the ball with no external sound you can just imagine it as the energy flows of the piece 1/9/2: I would move the ball with more lift if there was quiet quavers 2/10/6: I made a connection with moving the ball, with more or less energy to certain places

(Cont’d)

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Table 7.2 Comprehensive table of super-ordinate themes (cont’d)

1/28/2: Instead of just one thing and another I felt more aware of how the energy was changing in my body and moving on the piano 1/14/5: There’s horizontal … and a wider core, there’s up and down and different levels going forward and backward 3/45/3: Throwing things around and bringing it down Tension and release 1/16/1: I can see myself using body tension 3/47/3: When I feel there is more tension in the right hand 3/47/4: I think about not just the arm but the tension going into the chest and the muscles in that side of my body 1/43/2: Feeling the muscles and the contractions 1/14/7: I’m trying to incorporate my whole body with the tension 3/4/2: Finding the tension…starting from the core and leaning in 2/14/3: It was quite an enclosed feeling there … when it starts to go up in the second bar, that’s an open feeling 1/25/2: Using the ball and feeling the t tension of the elastic band 1/41/2: I felt the tension moving in my body 1/11/4 & 11: An aspect of tension … a detail of my shoulders … I crunch my shoulders … my body shape is changing … I’m more relaxed

(Cont’d)

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Table 7.2 Comprehensive table of super-ordinate themes (cont’d)

B. Musical Intentionality Making, grasping and realizing intentions 1/6/5-6: I Realise the details (Intentional chain), realization, fulfilment, 2/10/4: I Realise what you have making connections to do to help you perform 1/2/2: Phrasing that line became more apparent 1/43/2: How I would represent the harmony and tension, release and dissonance 1/2/1: The top line doesn’t seem as voiced as I thought it would have been 1/16/5: There is phrasing movement but the voicing is a little boring 3/14/3: I expected to keep the length 1/18/24: I feel that you’re gaining connection with the composer’s intentions 2/4/1: Like a musical box action 3/49/2: Like raindrops falling C. Performer Agency Decision-making, ownership, self-awareness, confidence 1/43/6: That’s what I really want and see and feel what it sounds like 3/49/2: I want those chords to sound like raindrops falling down 1/41/3: I knew what the phrasing was going to be, I knew what I was doing 2/10/2: You start to get the confidence to do things 3/45/5: I’ve decided here to hum the left hand part of the music 1/12/2: Being unusual 1/7/2: It didn’t feel like it was naturally within me 1/7/8: I felt a little odd 1/12/5: A bit of a distraction 1/8/4: I wasn’t doing a good job (Cont’d)

(Cont’d)

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Table 7.2 Comprehensive table of super-ordinate themes

1/16/2: I’m not used to it … takes time to sink in 1/12/16: A little overbearing 1/23/7: Didn’t know what to do 1/12/1: There are so many things 1/12/8: It was kind of a blur 1/12/14: I’m still refreshing it 1/7/9: I felt more restrained 1/8/6: Focusing too much on trying to get it right 1/6/1: I can’t remember the feeling that much at the beginning D: Learner Autonomy Reflection, responsibility, self-direction, self-reliance, co-creativity, openness to learning strategies 2/8/1: It’s more about the surprise … not giving anything away 3/6/3: Not to let my body go Feeling comfortable in your own skin 1/22/13: Your body feels right 3/62/1: Movement of my hands … my movement with the ball 1/20/5: More willing to show 1/6/7: Began to blend movement, contraction and expansion 3/71/1: I seem to be more in control of my movements… more prepared at the piano 1/23/2: I’m moving my body around more … my back is a little less straight 1/16/4-7: It’s odd but good 1/32/2: It’s a more open approach

1/26/3: Without your help. I couldn’t

have done it

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7.6 Summary

In this chapter, I have presented the analysis of the music-related movement data, the

post workshop interviews and the IPR interviews gathered as a result of the three

music/movement workshops. I began by describing the sound and movement of Alex’s

initial performance of the first phrase of Diversions, pointing out strategic moments that

seemed important to him. My discussion focused on these strategic moments, revealing

issues of disjointedness, arrhythmia, dynamic control and an imbalance in voicing

between the left and right hands. Next, I gave an analysis of the movements Alex used

in the movement/music exercises away from the piano using a selected category from

Laban-based Kestenberg’s Movement Profiling (KMP) system: Shape Flow Design. It is

also important to notice that it was at this point that I reflected on the use of KMP as a

way of analysing the movement. My background is Laban and KMP is Laban-based.

However, I felt that perhaps using LMA/BF may have been a more appropriate at this

stage of my work. KMP gives insightful information but the analysis of the data is made

more complex by the use of graphs and sometimes focuses too much on quantitative

data analysis. On reflection I would consider using LMA/BF or Warren Lamb’s

Movement Profiling System (Lamb and Watson 1979) as an alternative as these

methods are more focused on qualitative data. That said, I learnt so much about KMP

and it does seem that it could be a very useful tool for in analysing movement in a music

performance context as mixed data sets are helpful in exploring habitual behaviour,

particularly to do with social interaction, health and wellness, and repetitive strain injury.

Using KMP, I focused on Alex’s use of surrounding space, the design of his spatial

pathways and the specific qualities of his movements. I used a sequence of images

taken from the video-recording to look at his movements from moment to moment. This

was a means of illustrating how Alex showed the departure and arrival of the first

phrase of Diversions by moving his interpretation of the musical pathway in the space

around him using a tennis ball while vocalizing the music. Alex showed a notable

inclination for using intermediate to far reach space, mismatching his movement at the

piano where he used near to intermediate space dictated by the close voicing in the

score. In terms of spatial pathways he showed an inclination to balance his use of

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centripetal and centrifugal movements, matching his consistent use of expansion and

contraction of the musical phrase at the piano. In relation to the qualities of his

movements, he showed a notable tendency to use rounded reversal rather than angular

reversals, linear rather than looping and a significant proclivity to use low amplitude

rather than high amplitude qualities. This matched his intention to shape the musical

phrase in a smooth continuous manner, and reflected the intimate intertwining melodic

lines and the introspective nature of the music. Following this, I offered a comparison

between Alex’s first and second performance of Diversions. In his second performance,

he noticed a difference in his poise at the piano and in the way he controlled the energy

flow and the dynamics in the opening bars of the phrase. Unlike his first performance it

appeared that he found it easier to connect his movement with the music and with his

playing at the piano and experienced a sense of comfort and agency in realizing his

musical phrasing intention both in his movement and in his playing and in finding a way

of transforming imagery into sound at the piano. This prompted a third performance a

few days later during which Alex related an increased sense of energy, flow, tension

and release and autonomy between balancing the left and right hand in bringing out

melodic lines at the piano.

Subsequently, I presented an analysis of the post-workshop interview regarding Alex’s

experience of the music/movement workshop from his own point of view. As a means of

deepening my study, I introduced the IPR interview data from the third movement/music

workshop during which Alex explored Beethoven’s Piano Sonata in C Minor Op.10

No.1. This provided an opportunity to enrich the data interpretation by reference to

Alex’s experience of the relationship between his movement and the music from the

established concert repertoire for piano from the Classical period. This was a piece that

he had performed before and wanted to work on further to explore possibilities for

certain aspects of his playing such as realizing dynamic intentions and textural balance

between his left hand and right hand playing.

Using an IPA approach, four super-ordinate themes emerged: Experiencing Flow,

Embodiment, Challenges, Application and Autonomy. These themes revealed

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experiential aspects that were important to Alex. Next, I gave an account of the IPR

interviews, which allowed access to further details about Alex’s personal views of his

experiences. Several new themes emerged including tension and release, force, weight,

movement/kinaesthetic sensation, kinaesthetic imagery, breath and breathing,

connection between the whole-body and body parts, agency, skin tension, learner

autonomy and economy of movement. I offered a reappraisal of the super-ordinate

themes outlined earlier in the chapter and reconfigured and relabelled the themes as

follows: A) Embodiment; B) Musical Intentionality; C) Performer Agency and D) Learner

Autonomy.

In order to deepen the layers of interpretation, in the next chapter I discuss each theme

in turn before returning theoretical discussions that link the findings with Johnson’s

Enactive-based theory of Image Schemata. The following chapter also addresses the

possibilities and relevance of combining a Somatically-informed movement approach

with Enactivist positions as a framework for developing a pedagogical method of

embodiment for pre-professional musicians in higher education, with a more distinct

focus on piano playing.

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Chapter 8: The main study: interpretation and

discussion of findings

… in the beginning, we are simply infused with movement – not merely with a propensity to move, but with the real thing. This primal animateness, this original kinetic spontaneity that infuses our being and defines our aliveness, is our point of departure for living in the world and making sense of it … (Sheets-Johnstone 1999: 136)

8.1 Introduction

In the previous chapter, I analysed the research data relating to Alex’s experience of the

Somatic Movement-inspired explorations during the workshops. The four super-ordinate

themes that emerged from the data were A) Embodiment; B) Musical Intentionality; C)

Performer Agency and D) Learner Autonomy (see Table 7.2). These interrelated

themes describe the essence of the experience for Alex as he related it, including what

he experienced and how he experienced it. In this chapter, I offer an interpretation of

each theme in turn as a way of a gaining a deeper understanding of Alex’s experiences

and the relevance of the findings for integrating Somatic learning processes into music

performance education. To provide further insight into Alex’s application of Somatic

learning processes into his practice, I then reflect on the themes by referring to

theoretical discussions in the field that support the findings and set them in a wider

Somatic Movement Education and Enactivist context.

8.2 Super-ordinate theme A: Embodiment

Within this theme certain categories such as breath, energy flow, tension and release,

and sensory awareness emerged (as detailed in Table 7.2). Alex referred to these

aspects of his experience repeatedly suggesting they were significant to him. As such,

the following discussion focuses on these aspects.

In a traditional sense, learning to play the piano is primarily concerned with cognition,

related to internal processes, thought and knowledge acquisition where the body plays

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a supporting role – where learning is concerned with transmission of knowledge to the

mind. The music student’s body becomes isolated as the student is separated from the

learning context. This mind/body dualism fails to utilize the ways in which they can

construct knowledge through embodied experiences. Applying Somatic Movement

techniques to musical performance learning refers to how students can bring the

Somatic concepts into their daily lives as musicians. As students begin to practice

breath awareness, balance, concentration, relaxation, finger and hand flexibility,

observation, visualization, they can start to make more of a mind-body connection in

their practising and playing. Learning about breath awareness can take time and

enthusiasm. Many musicians hold their breath or otherwise do not breathe with musical

phrases. This is especially relevant for student pianists as they do not need to use

breath to produce a sound and tend to tense up their bodies when they try to play fast

or try to play a difficult passage. Making a change to the way they breathe can make

them feel uncomfortable, because it is far removed from their usual experience.

However, by applying the ideas of the Somatic Movement principle of attending to

breath and breath support, a change in student pianists’ breathing can lead to more fluid

and easeful movement when playing the piano. This was illustrated by the findings and

the essence of the embodied learning experience for the participant student pianist,

Alex, during movement explorations connected to breath.

Alex became aware of the movement of his breath when he had to move from his own

breath patterns during the guided breath awareness exploration done in the warm-up

phase of the workshop.45 By attending to his experience of the movement of his breath,

he noticed the changes in the sensation of his breath moving through his body. This

was a new and different experience for him. He described feeling an unusual sensation

of awareness he had previously been unaware of. Noticing the movement of his breath

45 Continuous studies of diverse Somatic practices in London, New York and Istanbul with various

teachers have influenced my music performance workshop content and delivery. Contributory to my

personal experience and the facilitation of Somatic Movement are practices in Laban Movement Analysis,

Bartenieff Fundamentals, Skinner Releasing Technique, Contact Improvisation, Pilates and Dalcroze

Eurhythmics.

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allowed him to slow down and observe how he connected his breathing patterns to all or

part of the body when playing the piano. He became aware of how Somatic learning

processes could support his intuitive musical knowing, and thus contribute to his

experience of knowing from where his movement was initiated and how that affected

the sound he produced. His awareness of the movement of his breath allowed him to

release any unnecessary tension, helping him to connect with his emotions and what he

was feeling. This is portrayed by Alex as he reflected on his experience:

I can see myself using body tension... when I feel there is more tension in

the right hand I think about, not just the arm but the tension going into the

chest and the muscles in that side of my body.

Participating in the rhythmic phrasing of his breathing he used his imagination to

visualize his breath moving through his body, which allowed him to maintain an

awareness of the connection between those areas and the sound he made at the piano.

This is further illustrated in Alex’s account when he said:

I use my breath just in the chest at first, and then slowly going into each

body part at a time. I move it through my body ... expanding my chest from

my core all the way into the outer limbs ... adding more and more

sensation as I get used to the feeling (dialogue unit 28)

Here, Alex related his embodied experience of filling his body up with breath and how

he began to relax into the experience and became more aware of the feeling of the

relationship between the parts of his body and ‘allowing the force of the music to flow

through’ him. This enabled him to listen more deeply to the movement of his breath and

allowed changes to happen in his whole body as he became more confident in allowing

himself to learn from and accept what he is felt. He also mentioned that he is became

freer with his movements at the piano and more aware of ‘how the energy was

changing’ in his body and ‘moving on the piano’. Furthermore, he noticed that the

tension in his shoulders did not help him achieve his musical intentions and that through

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being aware of his breath he observed that his body shape was changing as he

considered that his ‘shoulders were less crunched up’. This enabled him to notice a

more interactive relationship within his whole self and allowed him to unblock

troublesome breath patterns that seemed to be hindering his movement patterns at the

piano and the sound he made. As a result he seemed happier with the quality of the

sound he produced when his shoulders were less crunched up and his back was ‘a little

less straight’.

An embodied sense of breath was particularly relevant to Alex’s experience of exploring

and implementing his musical phrasing ideas both away and at the piano. It allowed him

to slow down and notice what he was doing and become more aware of how he was

connecting embodied processes. He commented that: ‘I embody the phrasing ...

imagining a path through the music ... using my breath to connect the phrases with a

break or smooth transition’. Here, Alex identified his breathing process as a way of

connecting his imagination with the technical aspects of his playing at the piano –

creating a link between his inner dialogue and the learning environment while exploring

and moving. His observation that he experienced phrasing as a ‘path moving through

the music’ resonates with that of LMA/BF Somatic dance artist and educator, Peggy

Hackney, who notes that breath support is highly important in phrasing movement as it

is a key element that can ‘determine the entire course of action for the phrase’ (Hackney

2002: 47).46

Alex’s exploratory mode – finding out about himself as a mover and pianist and

observing how he experienced his individual organization of his movement into phrases

both away from and at the piano – suggests that this is part of his willingness and

openness to try new methods. In the workshops I observed him engaging with the

46 My teaching of music performance using somatic movement techniques is influenced by the British

lineage of LMA/BF work (Valerie Preston-Dunlop, Alison Curtis Jones and Marion North) and the British

and American lineage of Dalcroze Eurythmic work (Karin Greenhead, UK and Robert Abramson and

David Frego, USA). Skinner Releasing Technique impacted on my teaching of music performance and

my workshops include elements of SRT such as guided improvisation and use of imagery through

studying with Stephanie Skura.

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guided movement explorations in a focused way, freely seeking an individualistic way of

phrasing his movement. The inner dialogue that he kept active while moving and

playing the piano is evident in his comments regarding his experience of his sensation

of the flow of energy: ‘I keep it flowing instead of just moving in squares ... imagining it

(his movement) as the energy flows of the piece ... letting every sensation flow into the

music’. Alex talked a lot about the ‘flow of energy’ which seems to bear kinship with his

sense of fluidity in his piano playing. This illustrated a growth in his approach to

practising the piano from the mundane mechanical to a more inspired, creative

perspective. When he was practising the fingering, rhythm and pedalling as isolated

skills, getting the notes down in March’s Diversions, he was detaching himself from the

musical qualities of the score and building this disembodied approach into his

performance. As he attended to the harmonic progressions, and to the coherence that

came into his technical grasp when he considered his movement experience to

‘represent harmonies’ and explored this as he ‘bounced the ball up and down ... to

create harmonic flavours of sound ... using my hands to represent timbre ... the right

shoulder rocking around the melody’, he felt and heard March’s phrasing as if his hands

and shoulders had known its shape all along. He developed a sense of ease that

enabled him to expand his technique, create new touches and find new ways of

articulating sound. This allowed him to fully immerse himself in the learning process of a

new piece of music in an embodied way.

8.3 Super-ordinate theme B: Musical Intentionality

This theme describes the essence of Alex’s experience of the various movement

explorations he used to clarify and transform his musical phrasing intentions of a written

musical score into sound. This is based on his musical intentions that arose from his

own analysis of the musical scores and his movement interpretation of the compositions

used in the workshops. Within this theme categories such as intentional chain,

realization and fulfilment emerged as significant.

Musical intentionality can be thought of as a willing or wishing that allows a performer to

know how they want to interpret the musical score at hand. The idea is for students to

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use their musical intentions to guide what it is they want to do with the music in terms of

creating their own particular sound world during performance. Sometimes music

students may not know what it is they want to do, or even what is possible. Other times

they may know what they want to do but do not know how to direct their intentions. Or,

fail to recognize what they need to do due to fixed ideas about previous interpretations

by other musicians. It is not about forcing anything or making something happen. The

idea is to allow students to clarify their musical intentions so that they know what it is

they want to do. In this way, students can develop much more control over their

movement at their instruments to fulfil what they want to accomplish with regards to the

particular sounds they want to create. This is illustrated by Alex’s experience of

‘realizing the details about his musical intentions’ and noticing what he ‘had to do to help

him perform phrasing a line’ in the way that he wanted it to sound. With help from the

Somatic Movement explorations he began to understand how he needed to move at the

piano to fulfil his intentions to his satisfaction. He also talked about using imagery to

fulfil his intention to create a sounds ‘like raindrops falling’ and ‘like the action of a

musical box’. He used his movement experience of exploring these ideas to allow him to

do exactly what he wanted to do at the piano. He re-experienced the feeling of moving

like a raindrop slowly and precisely down the window pane and the feeling of moving

like the mechanical movement of a musical box to allow him to move more dynamically

at the piano. He noticed a certain lightness in his touch brought about the exact

‘raindrop’ sound he wanted to create. He envisioned his centre of weight propelling him

forward in a mechanical way to create the continuous monotonous and slightly irritating

‘musical box’ sound. At other times, when reflecting on his performance, he commented

on his unfulfilled intentions. For instance, he commented that ‘the top line doesn’t seem

as voiced as I thought it would have been’ indicating that he realized that there was a

mis-match between what he thought he had done to accomplish the sound he had

intended and what it actually sounded like.

Alex’s phrasing intentions for both pieces were clearly marked on his copies of the

musical scores. Sometimes he found it challenging to sense his phrasing intentions in

the compositions as he played them on the piano. However, after he had explored

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moving and imagining singing/vocalizing the phrasing to identify and/or clarify the

beginning and endings of a phrase he found it easier to clarify what he had to do to

‘represent the tension in the harmony’ and a clearer understanding of how he was going

to fulfil a sense of ‘dissonance and release’.47 He had to learn how to organize and re-

organize his movement at the piano because it was apparent to him that his sense or

grasp of the musical phrasing was not always clear. He referred to his disappointment

that ‘the voicing is a little boring’. However, his movement work during the Somatic

explorations allowed him to work with the space around him in the studio. His

experience of the exercise with the light football allowed him to clarify his spatial

intentions regarding the movement of the musical phrase as he acknowledged that he

could hear that ‘there is phrasing movement’ now. He came to associate the movement

exploration with the light football with positive memories. This experience changed his

approach to musical phrasing from a visual one based purely on the score to a more

focused experience of coordination, creativity and movement autonomy at the piano.48

Alex also became more aware of his skeletal alignment as he moved to interpret his

musical phrasing intentions. By skeletal alignment, I refer to the SRT principle that

suggests that we are continually adjusting our bones and muscles during movement

rather than continually holding a static position (Skinner et al. 1979). These continual

adjustments guided him towards experiencing the alignment that gave him the greatest

freedom and coordination in movement. He learnt not to force these adjustments but

rather to let them come into play gradually in response to the influence of his desires to

fulfil his musical intentions. Alex learnt to attend to his movement and to listen more

closely to the adjustments needed to accomplish his intentions rather than enforce a

certain way of holding his hands or his spine in a fixed position to achieve a desired

sound. He commented that ‘there’s horizontal ... and a wider core, there’s up and down

47 By singing/vocalising I refer to the vocalisation to accompany the movement explorations with the

tennis ball and light football during the workshops.

48 Movement autonomy refers to the SRT principle that suggests that in order to allow multi-directional

movement patterns full play, the limbs and torso must have the ability to move autonomously (see

Appendix O)

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and different levels going forward and backward’. Here, Alex identified a link between

his inner process relating to his intent and the learning environment. This appeared to

help him connect with the intentions of others in particular, it was important to him that

he gained ‘more connection with the intentions of the composer’. He even felt he got to

know the composer better by moving to his music and facilitated his understanding of

the music in conjunction with his established methods of musical analysis and

interpretation. He observed that ‘phrasing that line became more apparent’ with a

deeper understanding of specific moments in the musical phrase such as the

preparation or anacrusis where he prepared within for the subsequent crusis or action

moment of the phrase. This resonates with LMA/BF notion of how movement is phrased

where ‘it is in the preparation moment that we claim our intention’, suggesting that

‘before visible movement happens an individual prepares for that movement ... a

moment of making oneself ready, coming to intent’ (Hackney 2002: 240). Alex came to

understand his musical intentions more clearly through listening to his movement and

was able to make natural adjustments to his skeletal alignment. This helped him to

prepare and organize his movement at the piano before making any sound. This helped

him to experience a greater sense of ease in initiating and implementing his own

thoughts, movements and actions, and to communicate his musical phrasing intentions

more clearly. Also, it allowed him to develop a deeper sense of connection with the

piano, the score, his own intentions and those of the composer and a sense of the

environment he was in.

8.4 Super-ordinate theme C: Performer Agency

This theme relates to the essence of Alex’s experience of a Somatic Movement method

as a means of developing performer agency. In this context, my understanding of

performer agency relates to the process of becoming more present and more confident,

especially in guiding student musicians’ individual interpretation of a composition and

developing a sense of ownership over that interpretation during performance. It differs

from my understanding of musical intentionality in that performer agency facilitates

personal imaginativeness and virtuosity. As such, within this theme, categories such as

decision making, ownership, self-awareness and confidence emerged as significant.

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A performer’s experience of agency can help to shape musical interpretation in practice

and performance through focus on internal processes and subjective experience rather

than on what might be observed by another person. This offers a new way of

considering Somatic Movement as a facilitative tool that can be used during practice

and in performance settings. To illustrate, Alex referred to his decision to ‘hum the left

hand part of the music’ and that he ‘knew what the phrasing was going to be’. This

suggests that he experienced something beneath the surface of the music that he was

reflecting in his movement – the harmonic rhythm rather than rhythmic note values, the

ebb and flow of dynamics with phrase structures. He commented that it became clear to

him how he wanted ‘those chords to sound’ and that he ‘knew what the phrasing was

going to be’. This moment of confidence, suggests that Alex managed to balance his

awareness and attention to bring himself to an ideal position for playing the piano. A

place where his pianistic skill enabled him to ‘start to get the confidence to do things’ - a

belief in himself as a human being as well as a pianist to find ways within him to know

that he can be more.

Experiencing a sense of agency in this way was new for Alex, and learning in a guided

improvisatory movement manner contributed to his experience that it was ‘unusual’. He

commented that ‘it didn’t feel naturally within me ... I felt a little odd’. This relates to our

knowledge of movement and that our capabilities act as important constraints on how

we understand our own agency in the context of learning to play an instrument. Within

this context students constantly learn from what the teacher does as well as what they

say. At a higher education level usually the instrumental teacher is a performer, and it is

reassuring for students to know that their teacher has performed on stage. However,

there is a certain amount of ‘this is what you need to do’ advice that goes into teaching

musicians. The important thing is, as piano student’s train for virtuosic brilliance, that

physical skills remain integrated with the whole being of the identity of the individual, not

separated. Keeping this connection alive is essential if student pianist are to going

develop their imaginations and not simply attempt to imitate other pianists

The moment of confidence mentioned above was a way of illustrating imagery

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processes that helped Alex to explore what he really wanted to express himself in

sound at the piano and to begin to ‘see and feel what it sounds like’. The Somatic

Movement explorations helped him to stay open to the ideas of his teacher while

allowing him to evaluate how it also was inhibiting him. He commented: ‘It didn’t feel like

it was naturally within me’ and that he ‘didn’t know what to do’ showing an engagement

with movement exploration as a way of knowing and being in his world as a pianist and

within the wider world.

8.5 Super-ordinate theme D: Learner Autonomy

This theme describes the essence of Alex’s experience of thinking about his learning

and development in piano playing as an experience that involved noticing things that he

could change about the way he plays the piano and how he can make those changes

he could make for himself. Placing the learner at the centre of the music performance

learning process encouraged Alex to take responsibility for his own choices and to get

to know himself better by reflecting on what he did and said during the workshops and

in his own practice sessions outside the workshop context. This theme differs from

performer agency in that the relationship between student/teacher and student/student

is the focus in the co-creative workshop learning environment. In this theme the

categories that emerged as significant included reflection, responsibility, self-direction,

self-reliance, openness to different learning strategies and tools.

Learner autonomy is supported by the importance Alex attached to the facilitative

teaching approach of the workshops. He commented on the significance of ‘feeling

comfortable in your own skin’ and his decision to become ‘more willing to show’ his

inner feelings and be open to exploring new strategies and tools. He took this as a

starting point for self-directed learning noticing that he was more aware of his

movements and as a result ‘more prepared at the piano’.

He also noticed that others had also facilitated his development as a pianist and

recognized that others along the way had influenced his learning. He often mentioned

previous piano teachers who had influenced him, especially with regard to alternative

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learning strategies that involved releasing tension and ameliorating performance

anxiety. With regard to the research workshops he commented that ‘I couldn’t have

done it without your help’, which suggested he was ready to acknowledge that learner

autonomy involves others to facilitate self-directed learning.

Learner autonomy also involves a sense of freedom to explore and the opportunity to

reflect on those experiences. Alex noticed that sometimes he ‘didn’t do a good job’ but

he allowed himself to reflect on this, which suggested that it was because he was ‘not

used to it’ and gave himself time to ‘let it sink in’. This suggests that he was beginning to

experience his own role as an autonomous learner and the part he played in his own

development as a pianist. Another example, was the way he decided that he needs to

release his shoulders at the piano so they are not scrunched and tense. It is very easy

for music students to stay focused on the suggestions they have received from their

teacher or a colleague and see the change of arm or shoulder position or the angle of

the way they sit at the piano as difficult to change. A Somatic Movement approach

allowed Alex to consider the quality of his movement or his control and overall balance,

which includes the instrument. He became aware of his joints and muscles involved in

sitting at the instrument and began to move more freely where he sensed things needed

to change. He brought his attention to his sense of where his body is and what it is

doing. However, this is not without acknowledging that his sense of position and

movement of his body at the piano might be misleading due to faulty sensory

perception. However, Somatic Movement principles allow pianists to sense more

accurately the movement and position of their bodies rather than checking in in a mirror,

that they are doing what they think they are doing.

In higher education, learner autonomy can be particularly important. Music students

may have limited contact time for instrumental tutorials but they may need to rapidly

increase their knowledge and skills to take full advantage of the music making

opportunities that may be on offer and perhaps to deal with higher expectations and

higher standards than they have been used to at school. In this context, it can be

important for them to become self-reliant learners who can continue learning outside the

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tutorial room. In this way, providing a student with many different learning strategies,

methods and tools can be a way of enhancing their experiences and varying the ways

of learning. From the findings in this theme, it would seem that Somatic Movement

approaches can provide students with a practical and accessible method of inner

exploration to add to their tool boxes which can allow them to address their own

individual needs so that they can make ongoing progress through the freedom to

express themselves as individuals.

The following section links the precious discussion of the findings with theoretical

considerations by discussing relationships with Johnson’s Enactive-based notion of the

Image Schematic structure of embodied musical experience and meaning (Johnson

2007). This is a way of furthering insight into understanding how Alex’s experiences of

the Somatic Movement explorations during the music performance workshops enabled

him to discover musical meaning through the process of inner exploration. Revisiting the

super-ordinate themes, I reflect on aspects that seemed to be important to Alex and, in

particular, consider how embodiment may have helped him to made sense of his

experiences through image schematic processes.

8.6 Reflection on the relationship between the findings and the

theoretical concept of Image Schemata

In the light of the Enactivist perspective, one way of understanding and attributing

meaning to Alex’s embodied experiences through reflection on the super-ordinate

themes is by considering philosopher Mark Johnson’s theory of Image Schemata (see

Chapter 2). As discussed in Chapter 2, in Johnson’s view, we acquire Image Schemata

primarily from ‘dynamic recurring patterns of organism-environment interactions’ which

uncover themselves ‘in the contours of our basic sensorimotor experience’ (Johnson

1987: 147, 172 and 2007: 136). Johnson’s theory makes use of Kant’s (1787/2000: 140)

insights that analogy is the cognitive mechanism that transforms our basic sensorimotor

experiences into abstract concepts, and that analogy, what Johnson calls conceptual

metaphor, is the cognitive mechanism through which we come to understand those

abstract concepts of which we have sensorimotor experiences. For example in music,

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Johnson suggests we ‘experience and understand a musical piece as an extended

motion, via the Moving Observer metaphor – as starting somewhere, moving on a

musical journey toward some other place, and finally arriving at some metaphorical

destination’ (Johnson 2007: 244). He also recognizes that we ‘experience this

metaphorical motion as a striving – an endeavour to reach a goal’ (ibid.). This notion of

musical motion is also reflected in his idea of the Source–Path–Goal image schema, a

movement analogy mentioned in previous chapters. Put simply, the schema consists of

1) a source point goal, from which the path begins, 2) a path leading in some direction

and 3) a goal; that is, an endpoint for the path (Johnson 2017). Although Johnson

acknowledges that it may seem over-simplistic described in this way, the schema does

offer a basis for a wide range of inferences for human embodied experience and

aspects of musical phrasing such as a) a source location (departure of the phrase), b) a

goal (the intended destination for the phrase, c) a route from the source to the goal and

d) the trajectory of motion. This leaves out the possibilities for other musical phrasing

aspects such as the fluctuation in speed, events along the way, and musical elements

such as dynamics that move the trajectory of the phrase and so on. In addition, a path

can be straight, it can twist and turn back on itself, or it can involve stop-and-go motion,

without losing its sense of structure. However, Johnson’s schema appears to neglect

the kinaesthetic spatial aspects of embodied experience of musical phrasing and, in

particular, the centrality of the mover and what forms the movers body makes as they

go along this spatial pathway. Is the shape changing in relation to self or in relation to

the environment? How is the shape changing? And what is the major quality or element

which is influencing its process of change (Hackney 2002: 221)?

Further, Johnson proposes that movement is ‘one of the principal ways we learn the

meaning of things and acquire our ever-growing sense of what our world is like’

(Johnson 2007: 20). He suggests that ‘we learn what we can do in the same motions by

which we learn how things can be for us’ (Johnson 2007: 21). But, this does not seem to

fully take into account how we can be agents of our own change and how we can learn

kinaesthetically. As a way of unpacking this, I focus on the super-ordinate theme of

Embodiment, attributing a possible alternative meaning to Alex’s experiences through

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the notion of Image Schemata that seem relevant to the discussion. This expands the

discussion in Chapter 7 and revisits the previous data analysis shown in the

comprehensive table of super-ordinate themes (Table 7.2).

Considering one of the aspects of Alex’s experience that seemed important to him, I use

an example from the movement workshops that focuses on the notion of phrase juncture

(the moment between the arrival and departure of subsequent phrases) as applied to his

own playing. Alex explained that the movement exercises helped him to decide whether

‘it was more necessary to make a break in the music or make a more continuous flow’. In

addition, focusing on his movements as he played led him to think about the energy he

utilized to accomplish the kind of sound he wanted to produce at the phrase junctures by

expressing how it felt ‘moving from one movement to another … getting the energy right

… changing it when necessary’.

From the movement-based metaphors Alex used in his account, it appeared his

experience of one of the movement exercises – carving the shape of the musical phrases

in the space around him with the light football – was important as it allowed him to

kinaesthetically experience the structural shape of the phrase junctures in terms of the

force and path schemas. This observation of structural contour seemed to be linked with

a whole-body awareness of the flow between each note and of the harmonic implications

of the music. He saw this a significant moment with regard to moving the music from one

place to another either in ‘continuous flow’ or blocked by ‘a break in the music’. He

appeared to experience Flow as an indicator of tension and release as well as direction

as he described a specific example of shaping phrase being influenced by his

understanding of the underlying flow of a phrase: ‘it might be that, you’ve got this dip and

the rising and falling in my movement ... this might have influenced the way I played ... to

draw attention to the intensity of the expressive focal point’. Alex’s experience of Flow

also seemed to be used in in conjunction with other technical aspects of the music such

as energy and weight. Here, it is important to note that Johnson mentions that one of the

crucial properties of Image Schemata is their compositionality – their ability to combine to

produce other Image Schemas (2007; 2017). This is relevant because it highlights the

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possibility that the seemingly over-simplification of understanding the experience of

musical phrasing through the notion of Image Schemata can be seen in a different light.

With the possibility of interacting schemata a much more intricate and dynamic network

can perhaps emerge. Johnson goes on to say that a full accounting of the image-

schematic structure of our experience and understanding might extend to thousands of

structures (2007; 2017), although he makes it clear that these would be made up of

smaller combinations of more basic image schemas. However, this does not seem to fully

account for the possibility of the kinaesthetic nature of Image Schemata and how we can

learn through conscious awareness of our movement with aspects of the environment in

which we find ourselves.

Sensory imagery was an important aspect of Alex’s experience of exploring and

implementing his intentions regarding the shape of the phrase. However, he also used

imaginative movement metaphors such as a moving musical box or the idea of raindrops

dropping on the ground. From his own movement he also showed a way of

understanding the bodily interaction with the surrounding environment required to realize

his ideas and communicate his intentions at the piano. His statement that ‘I start from the

core but send out completely different muscle messages to each side of my body’

indicates his desire to construct a sense of connectivity between the separate limbs and

body parts. Instead of differentiating them, his focus is about feeling their interrelationship

as a whole. This could relate to the Centre-Periphery schema – an image schema that

involves a physical or metaphorical core or edge and the degrees of distance from the

core (Johnson 1987: 124–125). This may also relate to Alex’s experience of his personal

sphere (kinaesphere) and his strong sense of his own inner core from which his

movement emanated. Returning to the idea of Alex’s experience of kinaesthetic

awareness to assist his discovery of additional benefits of whole-body connectivity he

mentioned a feeling of freedom in his movement at the piano: ‘I felt more aware of how

the energy was changing in my body and moving on the piano’. He commented that his

movement experiences had allowed him to focus more keenly on the preparation of his

musical phrasing intentions in the Beethoven Sonata: ‘I seem to be more in control of my

movements ... more prepared at the piano ... the movement of my hands is like the

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movement with the ball ... I knew what the phrasing was going to be, I knew what I was

doing’. This particular movement exercise with the light football appeared to have had an

influence on how Alex understood and implemented his phrasing intentions in terms of

the contact of his hands on the ball and preparing the shaping of the phrase and

producing a particular sound at the piano. In addition, it is possible to account for his

movement with the ball in an image-schematic way by his account that related to his

connection with himself and the environment.

Alex gave other examples of understanding the music in terms of physical movement. He

discussed tracing the shape of the phrase with his fingers and hands in space allowing

his fingers to react against or responded to the music, and talked about the effectiveness

of this regarding the amount of weight given to a textural event or melodic contour. His

experience of noticing ‘the flow of energy in all parts’ of his body ‘not just specifically

thinking’ about his hands gave him a new sense of fluidity at the piano. Here he seems to

sense that he was moving with and listening to the music as a bodily means of learning

how these fragments and events worked together within the piece. Here, his experience

seems to relate more to Johnson’s notion of the felt sense, discussed in Chapter 2. A felt

sense is a concept that describes internal awareness. Originally developed by Eugene

Gendlin but developed by Johnson, it functions as a connection between the mind and

body. People experiencing a felt sense often feel more in tune with their body and even

feel as if they can feel themselves within different parts of their bodies such as their chest

or stomach (Gendlin 2003). Alex was insightful about his movement experience and the

manner in which movement sensations formed new perspectives and understandings

regarding his moving self both away and at the piano. With regard to performing

Diversions, he remarks:

‘I’m trying to incorporate my whole body with the tension of the phrase ...

finding the tension, starting from the core and leaning in to the piano ... it was

quite an enclosed feeling there ... when it starts to go up in the second bar –

that’s an open feeling ... I can feel it in my body even now.’

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Clearly this could also relate to the Centre–Periphery schema, as noted earlier. Other

images such as Alex’s ‘over-dramatized movements to represent the shape of the phrase

to represent the triplets and semiquavers in the right hand’ (Bar 8; see Figure 8.1) could

also relate to the Source-Path Goal schema. Alex mentioned ‘moving quite directly’ in

space that allowed him to perform the phrase in that manner at the piano. Another

example is his experience of moving from place to place to ‘more and less to certain

places’ to express his musical intentions regarding emphasis and dynamics. He also

seemed to work with the idea that he had to manage obstacles on the way from one

place to another in the musical phrase; this became more intuitive as he ‘worked with the

shape of the phrase’. In addition, he remarks that ‘I have a good weighted feel in my

playing ... seeing it as an accented note but feeling it as transferring a very heavy weight’.

That is to say, Alex not only experienced the phrase as moving from place to place but in

terms of moving something with him on the journey. Alex’s discoveries helped me to

understand what he was thinking about when he was playing the piano. One example he

gave was about knowing when to shift his weight from and to in order to implement his

musical phrasing intentions and communicate what he wanted to say through his playing

at the piano.

Figure 8.1 Diversions Bar 8

From his reflections, it appeared that Alex experienced the separation between the

moving right hand melody line and the harmonic left hand chordal sounds of Diversions

in terms of the Source–Path–Goal schema. Metaphors from this schema allowed him to

comment on the directness he initially experienced when he played this section in

terms of moving in a precise straight direction to the E♭ on the ninth quaver beat of Bar

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8 (his goal). Following his experience of moving with the football he seemed to adopt a

more meandering manner, moving ‘more and less to certain places’ to reach his goal.

This appeared to reflect an intention to highlight the snaking nature of the melody line in

the right hand in contrast to understating the directly ascending step-by-step character

of the left. His experience here could also relate to the metaphors from the Scalarity

schema in conjunction with the Source–Path–Goal schema to differentiate the degrees

of largeness he experienced between the various twists and turns in the right-hand

melody. He referred to his movement as ‘more and less’, suggesting he felt the smaller

intervallic twists and turns as lesser movements and the larger ones as greater

movements.

In the follow-up interview to the third performance of Diversions, Alex talked about his

experience of making changes to his initial musical phrasing intentions. From his

comments, it seemed Alex experienced the pace of the tempo at this moment in the

music in terms of a combination of the Compulsion and Attraction schemata. This is

evidenced by Alex’s use of movement metaphor to describe the fluctuating tempo he

experienced as physical motion. Here, his intuitive compulsion/urge to ‘speed up’ or

‘slow down’ during the descending triplet in the right hand against the duplet quavers in

the left hand in the last two beats of Bar 11 appeared to be sensed as a compelling

force.

From this, Alex appeared to be experiencing the gravitational pull of the low C in the

bass as a magnet in terms of the Attraction schema. In contrast, he tried to resist and

overcome the draw of gravity by visualizing the tempo ‘to be like a musical box’. This

enabled him to ‘sustain the same tempo’ and control the ‘sudden interruption of the low

C to be more dramatic’. Additionally, it seems that Alex experienced this musical event

as a body that moves. In terms of the musical motion metaphor, it seems that his

experience of this moment in the music shared something with his experience of feeling

his body moving in physical space, tracing out an imaginary path of motion: his hand

carving the shape of the phrase in space or the rotation of the musical box mechanism,

for example. This also seemed to relate to the notion of felt sense discussed earlier.

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Furthermore, via the moving music metaphor, it appears his experience of experiencing

music as physical motion can be linked to his experience of feeling the way in which

music moves. His explanation of the ‘sudden interruption of the low C’ suggests that he

can feel this movement in the music as a physical impulse to move in a certain manner

– abruptly or unexpectedly – and that a sensory image of how it feels to move in this

manner can help him to accomplish the desired effect of ‘surprising the audience’ and

making the moment ‘more dramatic’. From this, we can observe that Alex seems to

have experienced a manner of moving music in terms of the Enablement schema,

which represents the execution of forceful motion (Johnson 2007: 257).

In the final part of the first interview, Alex talked further about his experience of tension

and release as he played the first two phrases of Diversions on the piano. Here, he

described his apparent feeling of the relationship of dissonance in this post-tonal piece

to his physical experience of its harmonic centre. From his description, it appears that

Alex experienced tension and release in the harmonic motion of the phrase in terms of

a combination of the Centre–Periphery and Attraction schemata. For instance, he

seems to notice the movement relationships among the post-tonal harmonic language

via these schemata and from his explanation the near-far schema, which is motivated

by the Centre–Periphery schema, is also involved. This is evidenced by his description

of the dissonance as ‘quite an enclosed feeling’ in the first bar and then as an ‘open

feeling’ when the ‘notes start to go up to the C♯ D♯ E in the second bar’. Further

evidence can be seen by his movement in the movement exercise away from the piano

where he used a Thera-Band to explore the shaping qualities of the phrase in terms of

opening out away from his body and closing in towards his body as he sensed the

tension and release in the music (Figure 8.2).

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Figure 8.2 Alex showing tension and release in Bars 1 and 2 of Diversions using a Thera-Band

In this exercise, Alex had a sense of his body as a single entity with a centre from

which he can open away from and close in towards with varying degrees of near and

far to express his sense of dissonance and consonance. In turn, he relates this to a

sense of tension and release. In general, he experiences dissonant intervals as being

closest to his body and consonant intervals as being further away. He explains by

recalling that ‘in Bars 3 and 4, the dissonance generally starts to release over these two

bars starting very close to the body and then going up higher with the melody in the left

hand’. Here, the conceptual metaphor – closeness is stability – is used in conjunction

with a metaphor from the Attraction schema to determine the degree of attractional pull

between intervals embedded in the harmonic texture. In terms of western art music

theory, consonant intervals are usually described as intervals that sound pleasant or

agreeable and create a feeling of stability whereas dissonant intervals create a feeling

of instability that need to be resolved. It is important to say that ideas of what

constitutes consonance and dissonance have varied to some extent over time and vary

from individual to individual. Here Alex, in contrast to the established view, feels

dissonance as stability in terms of closing in towards the body and consonance as

instability in terms of opening out away from the body.

Alex’s story of experiencing a sense of tension and release through the relationship

between harmonic motion and movement is reinforced when he recalls later in the

interview how he noticed the muscles in his body contracting and expanding to

represent the tension and release in the harmony. Furthermore, using this experience

‘to see and feel what it sounds like’ before trying to express his intentions on the piano

offers further support for his use of sensory imagery derived from movement

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awareness.

In his third and final interview after the third music/movement workshop where he

played the Beethoven sonata, Alex explained that after doing the movement music

exercises ‘I noticed myself … perhaps finding the tension … starting from the core and

leaning in’. Exploring similar sensations when he played Bars 57–63 (Figure 8.3), he

recalled:

There were interesting sensations here because I’m trying to keep my left hand and also the left side of my body completely still whereas the right shoulder with the melody was rocking around more which makes sense … starting from the core but sending out completely different muscle messages to each side. (3/6)

Figure 8.3 Bars 57–63 of Beethoven Sonata in C Minor Op.10 No.1

This event, which Alex seemed to have experienced in terms of the Balance and

Centre–Periphery schemata, led him to be able to transform his hand-to-left side of his

body and right shoulder-to-right side of his body experience into realizing a greater

sense of stability in his left hand, allowing him to accomplish a more evenly balanced

‘flowing but level and continuous’ accompanying support in the bass and the

suppleness necessary in his right hand to accomplish the rocking character of the

melody in his right hand as he imagines ‘bringing it [the Thera-Band] in and out and

backwards and forwards as sounds evolve and dissolve’ (3/55) (Figure 8.4).

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Figure 8.4 Alex exploring tension and release in Bars 56–59 of Beethoven Sonata in C Minor Op.

10 No.1 by stretching away from his body and releasing back into it using a Thera-Band

Alex noticed a change in his playing at this time. He mentioned that he had developed

a sense of initiating movement from his core rather than his shoulders. Relating this to

dance anatomy and theory, the core often refers to the centre of the body and in its

most general of definitions relates to the torso. Functional and dynamic movement are

highly dependent on the core. The major muscles of the core reside in the area of the

belly and mid and lower back and peripherally include the hips, the shoulders and the

neck (Karageanes 2004: 510–511). In Alex’s case, movement from the core could be

related to inner connection and a link with Somatic practice. Taking this into

consideration, Alex also seemed to notice how a sense of connection between his core

and his musical thinking supported his performance at the piano. He commented: ‘filling

my body up with breath … I expanded my chest from my core all the way into the outer

limbs … adding more and more sensation as I got used to the feeling … I didn’t need to

think as much’ which made it ‘more effortless and less tension in my hands. I seemed

to be more in control of my movements … I seem to be moving in a way to prepare

myself for what is coming up in the music’, and that ‘my movements were less jerky’

and ‘more in keeping with the musical lines’ and ‘a little bit more together with my

breathing … I kept the tempo in the Beethoven more level and didn’t fluctuate as much

as before, which is what I wanted to accomplish’. This is important link with both

Somatic Movement practice and Johnson’s work by making a theoretical connection

with core awareness (Centre-Periphery schema), inner/outer connection, breath

(Container schema).

From Alex’s remarks, it seemed he experienced an embodied understanding of

transforming his breath and sense of core into a means of enhancing his freedom of

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movement at the piano via the notion of the Container or In–Out schema, which

represents our physical experience of containment (Johnson 1987: 21). For example,

he seems to be aware of experiencing his body as a container by his description of

breathing as ‘filling my body up with breath’ and of his breath radiating out from his

centre ‘all the way into the outer limbs’. In this way, he seems to have greater release

over the forces that are within it. He noticed how connecting with his breath in this way

allowed him to release the amount of effort he exerted and reduce the level of ‘tension

in his hands’. He also seems to project this sense of enhanced freedom of movement

into the music by noticing a change ‘in the way’ he anticipated what was coming up ‘in

the music’ and the body movements he needed to make to accomplish his intention to

keep the tempo steady ‘in the Beethoven’.

By putting the feeling of the tempo into his body, it appears Alex began to feel a

connection between his use of kinaesthetic imagery and the sound that he created at

the piano in a way that he had not experienced before. Reflecting on the way he had

previously ‘got nervous in an exam’ and lost control of the final section in the

Beethoven because he was ‘thinking too much’. He explained that ‘the anticipation is

something which is good if it’s not something you’re having to think about the whole

time’ and that using kinaesthetic imagery helped him to memorize the music not simply

as the notes but as the sensations. This allowed him to focus on his ‘felt sense’49 and

the manner of his movements, and notice the ‘way it feels to bring the shoulders back

to prepare for the last two loud chords’. In other words, feeling what is right in the body,

which can be related to Somatic Movement practice.

Alex seems to experience how it feels to draw his shoulders back and his grasp over

the forcefulness of his movement in expressing his intention for the final moments at

the end of the first movement of the Beethoven sonata. A parallel can also be made to

Johnson’s notion of multi-sensory perception and patterns of feeling (Johnson 2007:

49 A term used by Gendlin (1970: 43–71) to describe the unclear, pre-verbal sense of ‘something’ – the

inner knowledge or awareness that has not been consciously thought or verbalized – as that ‘something’

is experienced in the body. See Appendix A for further discussion of Gendlin and the felt sense.

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43). The key point being, that Alex appeared to be able to interconnect different

domains of sensory experience, relating his awareness of his body movement pattern

with his experience of producing a particular sound at the piano. In this case, from his

account, it seems that Alex was able to transform patterns he felt in his moving body

into patterns he heard and felt through the music. Consequently, he was able to give

the last two loud chords of the first movement of the Beethoven sonata a dramatic

character in terms of Image Schemata that structured his purposeful motion towards a

destination. In Johnson’s words:

… such Image Schemata actually constitute the structure and define the quality of our musical experience. They are in and of the music as experienced. They are the structure of the music and they have meaning because they are partly constitutive of our bodily experience and the meaning it gives rise to. (Johnson 2007: 258)

It would seem that we can make some reference to Image Schemata and movement

metaphors as possibly accounting for Alex’s embodied musical experience of exploring,

implementing and communicating his musical phrasing ideas and intentions at and

away from the piano. However, Image Schemata, as abstract overviews, appear

inadequate to inform us about the whole-body awareness and kinaesthetic imagery

process he seemed to have experienced as he formed and transformed his embodied

movement experiences into concrete actions at the piano. It would seem that a Somatic

Movement approach also involves cognition and cognition involves an inner sense of

movement offered by a Somatic Movement approach. With this in mind it seems

possible that an integrated Somatic–Enactive framework that embraces embodied

thinking and action could be a starting point for developing an embodied pedagogy for

pre-professional musicians, with a particular focus on piano playing. This would expand

the Enactivist idea that musical meaning and understanding emerge in our sensory-

motor and affective experiences, where it is organized by recurring patterns of bodily

perception and action known as Image Schemata (Johnson 2007; 2017) to include a

Somatic perspective that places the body at the centre of the musical performance

learning experience rather than as merely a mediator. Rather than being told what to

do, Alex simply seemed to let the movement and the consequent sound at the piano

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just happen.

Figure 8.5 Alex showing multi-directional movement patterns

In Chapter 9, I offer my concluding thoughts on the various issues raised in this chapter

and reflect on the thesis objectives, address the thesis research questions, identify the

theoretical implications of the study, highlight the limitations of the study, reflect on my

own workshop practice as facilitator and suggesting direction and areas for future

research.

8.7 Summary

In this Chapter I have discussed the findings of the study with reference to the four

super-ordinate themes: A) Embodiment; B) Musical Intentionality; C) Performer Agency

and D) Learner Autonomy. This provided further insight into the participant’s experience

of a Somatic Movement-based approach and the relevance of the findings to a case for

integrating Somatic learning processes into music performance higher education.

Drawing on theoretical concepts of Johnson’s Enactivist-based notion of Image

Schemata and Somatic principles of inner awareness I expanded the discussion to

reflect further on the possibilities for developing a Somatic–Enactive framework on

which to start to build new way of thinking about and acting upon the relevance of

Somatic Movement practices in supporting music performance students’ learning and

growth. Of particular importance, discussion on performer agency and learner autonomy

provided a way to approach the application of new methods, including embodied

pedagogical considerations.

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In Chapter 9, I offer my concluding comments on the various issues raised in this

chapter. I also reflect on the thesis objectives, address the research questions posed in

the main study, identify the theoretical implications and highlight the limitations of the

study, reflect on my own workshop practice as facilitator and suggest directions and

areas for future research.

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Chapter 9: Concluding comments

9.1 Introduction: Revisiting the empirical findings and addressing

the research questions of the main study.

In this chapter, I synthesize the findings of the main study to address the central

research question, namely:

How does a pre-professional undergraduate piano student experience the

exploration, implementation and communication of musical phrasing

intentions through a Somatic Movement approach?

Through the three subsidiary questions, namely:

How does a pre-professional student pianist fulfil their own musical phrasing

intentions through a Somatic Movement approach away from the piano

keyboard?

How does a pre-professional student pianist describe their experience of a

Somatic Movement approach to supporting their learning and development as

future professional pianists, with a focus on musical phrasing?

How does a pre-professional student pianist apply their Somatic Movement

experiences to the way they practise and implement their musical phrasing

intentions both at and away from the piano keyboard?

Firstly, I will consider each subsidiary questions in turn and its contribution to the central

research question. I will then reflect on the theoretical implications before indicating

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some limitations of the study and outlining some implications for practice and future

research. Finally, I offer some concluding remarks.

9.2 Subsidiary research question 1: How does a pre-professional

student pianist fulfil their own musical phrasing intentions through a

Somatic Movement approach away from the piano keyboard?

Although the significance of using established methods of practising the piano in the

world of my participant is unquestionable, his experience of Somatic Movement

techniques clearly helped him to form an understanding of the advantages of an

embodied approach. Through his experiences and his descriptions of and reflections on

what he did and the views he expressed, he valued both thinking about and moving

aspects of his musical phrasing ideas. He noticed that letting go of any unnecessary

tension helped him to perform with greater freedom in his fingers, hands, arms and

shoulders, and is whole body in general. He recognized that he could achieve an

effortlessness which enabled him to fulfil his musical intentions through the piano

uninhibited by interfering tension. He became aware that he could relate a sense of

tension and release in his body to the tension and release he experienced in the motion

of the musical phrase.

The participant also described how helpful it was to be able to connect moving, thinking

about, seeing, feeling, listening to and visualizing the music he was practising. As an

example, he felt it was helpful to feel the transfer of weight in his body from one note to

another as well as seeing it on the score, or to embody the shape of a phrase by re-

experiencing the feeling of moving his body in space and imagining a path through the

music. Feeling music kinaesthetically seemed to help him grasp his ideas more firmly

and assist sensory-motor integrity by exploring a variety of levels and directions in

space to represent different nuances of expression and voicing. This kind of Somatic

Movement experience was not usually available to him, and it helped him embody the

shape of a phrase in a way that he could re-experience vividly or imagine as a

sensation rather than simply as remembered notes. He shared his experience of how

focusing on filling/emptying his breath into/from different body parts allowed him to be

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aware of the relationship between those different parts: a sense of how his fingers were

connected to his hands, his hands to his arms, his arms to his shoulders, chest, core

and the rest of his body. This newly-formed experience helped him to use his whole

body to inform his playing. He was not thinking only about his hands and fingers on the

piano keyboard but about how this whole body connection enabled him to feel more in

control of his movements while accomplishing his musical phrasing intentions.

Additionally, he imagined his legs as lungs, enabling him to consider his use of breath

at the piano. This appeared to give the opportunity to shift his breath freely throughout

his body rather than experiencing it as being a fixed process located in his chest. He

related this experience to a feeling of energy flowing through his body, and seemingly

enabled him to utilize the potential power of breath to influence the grouping of the

notes within a phrase and how subsequent phrases were connected. He talked at

length about his experience of the connection between his breath and a sense of

continuity of the musical phrasing. Even though he may have intended a break or a

disconnect in the sense or shape of the phrase, he was able to feel the flow of the

musical phrasing as a circular expansion and contraction rather than as a series of

jarring stops and starts moving in a direct manner from A to B.

The participant related his experience of the movement/music exercises with the tennis

ball and the light football and their effects on helping him to create and achieve a wider

variety of musical nuance in terms of tempo fluctuation, dynamics and harmonic

flavours of sounds at the piano. He noticed how they helped him be more aware of how

he had to move and the quality of his movement in bringing about the fulfilment of his

musical intentions, which were not at first realised. Moving with the light football while

imagining the music helped him to explore the details of the shape of a phrase and feel

the degree of emphasis by bouncing the ball with different amounts of energy. He

referred to the benefit of removing external sound to enhance his experience of the

energy flow of the music. He mentioned how the after-image of a pathway traced in

space with the ball helped him to conceptualize the gradation of dip and rise in the

melodic contour of a phrase and to manage to calmly anticipate the amount of effort

needed to realize the lift and pull of rhythmic vitality at the piano. However, the exercise

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with the tennis ball was less successful in helping him to accomplish his phrasing

intentions but this could have been because these types of Somatic Movement

exercises were unfamiliar to him. He also discusses how his experience of the exercise

with the Thera-Band helped him to realize rhythmic vitality at the piano by noticing how

the feeling of expanding and contracting the band to represent the tension and release

in the phrasing enabled him to physicalize and conceptualize how sequences of sounds

evolve and dissolve.

9.3 Subsidiary research question 2: How does a pre-professional

student pianist describe their experience of a Somatic Movement

approach to supporting their learning and development as future

professional pianists, with a focus on musical phrasing?

The participant explained how the exercise with the light football changed the way he

connected musical phrases. He noted how moving with the ball to represent the phrase

junctures altered his experience of energy flowing through his body by allowing the

force of the music to stream through him. This sensation allowed an intuitive response

to the constant motion and moments of stability of the music rather than an analytical

one. He recognized that this allowed him to imagine the flow of energy changing in his

body and influenced the way he moved at the piano in order to express his intentions

more fluidly.

In another example, he noticed a change in his body alignment at the piano. He

explained how he felt the tension in his body was blocking free movement of his joints

and muscles in his upper body, which interfered with his ability to achieve his musical

intentions. He described how he crunches his shoulders and that his back was very stiff

at the piano prior to doing the movement/music exercises. He noticed that the exercises

had modified his body shape by releasing unwanted tension, allowing him to move his

body around more freely and release the tension in his back and shoulders. He was

more relaxed. This is illustrated by his intention to create surprise in his performance of

the low C at the end of the phrase in Bar 12 of Diversions. In his first performance this

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was awkwardly done whereas in his second and third performances he achieved his

intention with more poise and success.

The participant also noticed a difference in the way he was able to realize the shape of

the phrasing. He grasped what he had to do with his body to help him perform certain

phrases in the Beethoven Sonata more smoothly and others with a more punched

staccato. The exercise with the tennis ball allowed him to sense and feel the sound that

he wanted to achieve on the piano, especially with regard to expressing longer lines

within the phrases. The exercise with the light football allowed him to experience the

autonomy of the right and left sides of his body as he felt the musical emphasis shift

between the right and left hand parts, with the balance of the shape of the phrasing in

constant flux.

9.4 Subsidiary research question 3: How does a pre-professional

student pianist apply their Somatic Movement experiences to the way

they practise and implement their musical phrasing intentions both at

and away from the piano keyboard?

It seems the participant’s used his embodied experiences in many ways to help enrich

his established methods of practising the piano. Applying sensory imagery helped him

to understand the possible connections between the different movement qualities and

the sensations of embodied experiences he made to enable him to fulfil his musical

intentions at the piano. Johnson’s theory of Image Schemata provides a systematic

theory that enabled me to determine not only which combination of movement patterns

provided the basis for musical meaning making, but also how the process of formulating

these patterns took place. KMP provided a way of analysing the movement qualities he

used and the combination of these qualities in both his movement and in his playing at

the piano. A vast amount of research in support of a theory of embodiment has been

conducted in other disciplines as well as music, such as cognitive science, psychology,

neuroscience, and linguistics. However, much more is needed to determine exactly

what an image schema is and the role it plays in performing music.

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By analysing the participant’s experience of the movement/music exercises in light of

Johnson’s notion of Image Schemata, we can see the role these can play in practising

the piano. From this analysis, I discovered that a single phrase can be structured by

more than one image schema, each emphasizing different aspects. It may be that these

different analytical perspectives are possible because there is more than one logical

way of performing the same musical phrase on the basis of the image schema being

used. Each image schema provides a different network of metaphors that suggest

differences in spatial orientation, dynamics and feelings in the music. A single musical

phrase offers the imagination numerous possibilities, which will shift and change

depending on the Image Schemata and metaphors that are brought into play. This also,

provides a link to Laban’s notion of Effort combination. In a single phrase, a pianist may

use one, two or three effort elements. There may be one element in a nod (direct), two

in a leap of the hand (direct and accelerated) and three in a punched out staccato

(direct, accelerated and strong). The choice of elements and combinations used varies

with each individual pianist and each individual piece of music and particular

environment it is being performed in.

By observing the ‘before and after’ performances of March’s Diversions and

Beethoven’s Sonata in C Minor Op. 10 No.1 of my participant, it is possible to

understand the sensory imagery component of his experience - of the connection

between musical phrasing and kinaesthetic awareness. On one level, I observed how

he transformed features of his experience of moving/dancing a musical phrase in space

into a means of supporting his interpretation at the piano. His reference to allowing the

force of the music to flow through him allowed him to connect his inner preparation and

outer expression. He recognized that he could transform his knowledge of phrasing

movement into how he phrasing the music at the piano. He noticed that the inner

preparation necessary to initiate a movement was a helpful way of being aware of the

onset of a musical phrase at the piano that allowed him to prepare his whole body

calmly, without tension and with the appropriate energy, or, to use Laban’s terminology,

effort to achieve the kind of sound he wanted. He used his ability to re-experience the

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feeling of continuing a movement sequence through to its arrival followed by its

transition to help him realize the constant renewal of a musical phrase in terms of

departures and arrivals rather than linear paths of beginnings and endings.

On another level, he used his embodied knowledge of position and movement of

muscles in space to express a wider variety of shades of timing, energy and spatial

orientation at the piano through sensory imagery, or, as Skinner terms it, imagined

movement. He also observed how imagined movement was able to transform his

posture at the piano, allowing him a greater freedom to realize his musical intentions

with ease and comfort. He noted how fulfilling his musical intentions depended on

keeping his breath moving through his body and on ensuring that muscles connections

are kept as free from strain or tension as much as possible. He knew that unnecessary

tension would throw his inner adjustments out of balance. When a musical phrase is

imaginatively grasped as the way it feels to move, it can animate nonverbal information

such as sensory data. Thus, the use of imagined movement is helpful to pianists when

they are orientating themselves in space, negotiating the geography of the instrument

as sensory-motor skills must be quickly integrated.

Correct alignment, for example, is a crucial foundation upon which the fundamental and

qualitative movement potential of a pianist rests. If a pianist plays with a stiff back and

shoulders, the quality of their movement is inherently limited by the way their natural

flow of weight and momentum is interpreted through their skeletal structure. My

participant noticed that alignment is not a forced placement of skeletal parts or a static

position that is consciously held. Rather, he came to view it as a dynamic process of

continual adjustments to changes in his weight in space. He noticed how the shape of

his body changed as he explored horizontal, vertical and backward and forward

movement from his core, continually adjusting his movement while at the keyboard. He

experimented with movements that gave him the greatest freedom and coordination to

achieve his musical phrasing intentions. This was in response to imagined movement

from his experience of doing the movement/music exercises. The idea of imagined

movement takes place naturally between the performer and the realization of their

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musical intentions in performance. Using an examples from the pilot study, participants

explained:

… the movement … it seemed to be choreographed already in my body … it felt very natural and I didn’t need to try to think. (Joey) When I started to practise, it looked more natural, felt more natural and sounded more natural … I can feel secure in my own complete body, letting my body help me to get the right feeling for the song … not that I am just a head on a stick. (Minna)

9.5 Theoretical implications

Reflecting on the four super-ordinate themes derived from Alex’s experience of the

movement/music workshops: A) Embodiment, B) Musical Intentionality, C) Performer

Agency and D) Learner Autonomy (as detailed in Table 7.2 and Chapter 8), it is clear

that the learning process involved in developing musical phrasing skills and abilities is

complex. As a means of attributing meaning to his experiences I considered Johnson’s

Enactive-based theory of Image Schemata and Somatic Movement practice On the one

hand, Johnson’s concept of the image schematic structure of music and his

appropriation of Eugene Gendlin’s account of the felt sense (as discussed previously)

helped discussion of the issues around how the participant used his embodied

experiences to make sense of and give meaning to aspects of his performance of his

musical phrasing intentions at the piano. For example, the findings showed that he

experienced a felt ‘something’ in his awareness of irritation at making ‘a couple of

technical mistakes from Bar 37 onwards in the first movement’ of the Beethoven

Sonata. Even though he sensed that he ‘would not make any mistakes’ before he began

to perform he remembers the feeling of ‘cringing’ when he played the two wrong notes

because he felt that he knew it so well. He continued to clarify that he could not explain

why he made the mistakes especially as he recounted that ‘that bit is simple and nice

and moving and so consistent’. Even when he demonstrated to me on the piano the

particular passage he was unhappy with he continued to make the same mistakes and

was unable to make the necessary corrections. He was unable to know how to identify

the source of the issue as rooted in his movement and as result he was unable to let go

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of pre-fixed ideas of the quality of sound he wanted to produce and his intentions

remained unrealized.

In the IPR interview after the movement/music workshop that focused on the Beethoven

Sonata, he recounted a change in the way he sensed ‘something’ in the way he was

moving at the piano. Talking about the same passage in the Beethoven, he explained:

‘I’m noticing myself perhaps finding the tension starting from the core and

leaning in first to the left hand which comes in first and then the right hand turning

the slightly more furious section that goes before it in to release as it goes into

the softer section’.

This shows a change in his awareness of this moment in the music rather than

‘cringing’ or tightening he released his core and his hands to be able to fulfil his intention

to make a quieter quality of sound in this passage. As a result, he achieves his intention

to create a gentle flowing balanced line. This sensory awareness can be aligned with

Gendlin’s (1970) felt sense in that they are feelings, which include emotional and

cognitive components. This has implications for Image Schemata theory – expanding it

towards new thinking about the interdependence of sensory awareness, affect,

cognition and conscious movement.

Continuing the discussion of Image Schemata, findings showed that Johnson’s notion of

Image Schemata as a meaning-making mechanism allowed the participant pianist to

express his experience of musical phrasing in terms of his concept of embodiment. In a

sensorimotor sense, Alex recounted ‘imagining a path through the music’ and moving

through the music ‘using different spatial levels (high, medium or low level movements)

to represent volume or feelings’. In this way, his imaginings align with Johnson’s notion

that imagination is tied to the various imaginative capacities we have for using

sensorimotor processes to understand abstract concepts. In these particular examples,

Alex experienced a sensory image of a kind of sonic thread that moved through the

music, and embodied the musical events along the way by ‘using the movement of the

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hands to represent timbre’ as well as his whole body ‘to keep it flowing instead of just

moving in squares’, ‘thinking about the decay of the notes ... as sounds evolve and

dissolve’.

With regard to Somatic theory, even in the most established piano practice habits, there

is value in incorporating Somatic Movement methods that focus on the integration of

cognitive, emotional, feeling and sensory-motor processes. The main implication of

Somatic Movement principles to this study is that they have allowed me, albeit in

different ways, to explore the participant student pianist’s experiences of a new way, to

him, of practising away from the piano and applying those experiences to his piano

playing. Although Johnson and Skinner address similar aspects of embodied

experience, Johnson’s work aims to explain how features of our experience of

movement gives rise to our conceptualization and reasoning whereas Skinner’s aims to

explain how using sensory images of human movement characteristics can lead to our

experience of letting go and allowing things to happen rather than trying to control the

outcome. In terms of Johnson’s notion of Image Schemata, it is possible to link this idea

to the way the participant pianist used image schematic processes derived from his

Somatic Movement experiences. For example, Johnson’s notion that musical motion is

understood by our experience of human movement and motion allowed me to interpret

the participant’s account of his experience of embodying his phrasing intentions as he

imagined ‘the decay of notes bringing the Thera-Band in and out as sounds evolve and

dissolve’. In this way, the participant showed how he used an integration of his

imagination and knowledge of movement metaphor to re-experience the sense of

moving in towards and out away from his body through a series of events in a three-

dimensional landscape (Johnson 2007: 250). In addition, he used a sensory image of

the speed/tempo of the energy flow, ‘keeping it flowing instead of just moving in squares

... imagining it as the energy flows of the piece.’

In contrast, the Somatic practice of SRT – which suggests we experience the movement

through a spatial landscape in guided sensory movement imagery exercises rather than

merely through metaphorical conceptualization – also helped the participant pianist to

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explore his understanding of the musical concept of phrasing. The research findings

show that by using a Somatic Movement approach away from the piano the participant

pianist was able to use sensory images of his embodied experience of the tension and

release of a phrase. Further, that he was able to represent the melodic, harmonic and

rhythmic shape by carving his interpretation of these musical elements in space with his

hands. In addition, the findings suggest that my participant was able to draw on sensory

image of his joints and muscles. This enabled him to increase his awareness of his

dynamic and multi-directional alignment at the piano, which facilitated a neutral spine

alignment (following the natural curves of the spine) and relaxed shoulders. Thus,

allowing him increased freedom and ease of movement at the piano.

Both Johnson’s Enactive-based notion of Image Schemata and Somatic Movement

principles imply that the sensory image and movement awareness can serves as a

transformer/communicator of sensorimotor experience. However, in Somatic practice

sensory images can serve as a structure of metaphors for kinaesthetic experience

whereas conversely, it seems, Johnson views embodied experience as a means

structuring sensory images via conceptual metaphor. Likewise, when Johnson talks

about meaning in music, it is in terms of the way ‘auditory images and their relations

evoke feeling-thinking responses in us … and the way they flow and connect with each

other that will define our experience of the music and the meaning it has for us’

(Johnson ibid.). When Skinner talks about the role of the sensory image, it is in terms of

its ‘potential to communicate non-verbal information such as kinaesthetic data …

allowing a release of fixed points of muscular tension and new movement patterns to

become available’ (Skinner et al. 1979: 8). The use of sensory imagery in this sense

was helpful to the participant when he noticed how the release of muscular tension

allowed him to modify his preconceived ideas about musical phrasing and about his

musical phrasing intentions. In addition, it helped him to recognize his unhelpful

movement habits at the piano, which were manifested in his postural alignment. Being

conscious of his movement at the piano empowered him to change pre-fixed notions of

the way he should move and sit at the piano (with a straight back and hunched

shoulders). It provided the means by which he could release himself the dominance of

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cognitive control to experience the natural laws of movement as they apply to him as a

human being. Through this he was able to accomplish a greater sense of freedom and

autonomy in knowing what he needed to do at the piano to create the sounds he

wanted to create. An analogy can be made with jazz pianist and teacher David

Sudnow’s explanation of how his hands learnt to improvise at the piano:

There is finally no longer an I that plans, not even a mind that aims to plan ahead, but a jazz hand that knows at each moment how to reach for the music … from my upright posture, I look down … I see jazz pianists’ hands, and there was a critical time, not long ago, when I had the most vivid impression that my fingers seemed to be making the music themselves (Sudnow 1993: x, 2).

Johnson’s notion of the image schematic structure of music is now highly developed

and has been used by music researchers to explore our understanding of music.

Among available examples are: Echard (1999), who analysed the Image Schemata of

balance and force that structure Neil Young’s ‘Powderfinger’; Saslaw (1996), who

shows how the structural characteristics of certain force schemata are present in our

conceptualization of music; and Brower (2000), who gives several examples of some of

the ways we automatically experience music as goal-directed movement on the basis of

Image Schemata such as Source–Path–Goal. These studies link with the findings in this

thesis, in that image schematic processes can be one way of explaining embodied

musical experience, embodied musical meaning and how these experiences and

meaning-making processes can be transformed into sound by music performers as they

play their instruments.

The research findings have suggested that Somatic principles and Enactive positions

are interdependent in piano performance learning and developmental process in higher

education. This identifies the potentialities of an integrated Somatic - Enactive

framework for developing a pedagogical method of embodiment. A framework that

involves the application of Somatic Movement Education and the understanding of

Enactive notions of embodied musical meaning-making to piano performance that can

help student pianists to develop as embodied performers and to enrich their

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understanding of embodied performance. Not only as an individual pianists but also in

co-creation and co-learning with other student musicians and their teachers.

Relating back to the pilot study, some of the exercise involved partner work. Through

this students learnt through social-interaction about themselves in relation to others.

This experience was an empathic one, because the participants, took note of how their

partner affected their way of moving. Minna commented in her interview that:

The first workshop I remember we did this … especially this feather

exercise within a group. I think there was four of us maybe or at least 3. We

were tracing the shape of the music in the space with the peacock feathers.

That was really nice, something that I remember, somehow it gave me a

really good natural feeling about me and my body and feeling the music and

having people around me ... in this way musicians can learn from each

other.

Reflecting on his experience of partner work in the workshops, Tunday observed that

‘when I came to meet the people I didn’t know in the workshop it gave

me a sense of awareness of what is going on around me and what I felt at

that moment … I felt very new and fresh and wanted to know other’s ideas

and how they did things’.

Further exploration of social-integration may be a subject for future study.

Overall, and I include the pilot study here, I found that the use of Somatic Movement

principles and practices helped to support pre-professional student musicians’ learning

and development and gave invaluable insight into their individual lived experiences.

From their accounts, participants were able to:

transform their experiences of Somatic Movement, in terms of moving the self

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and being moved, into fulfilling musical intentions at the instrument;

apply their experiences of movement, self-sensory awareness and being moved

(by the music) to enhancing their ability to express what they wanted to say in the

way they wanted to say it at their instruments;

integrate individual movement and being moved to moving with others in a co-

creative manner within the surroundings they found themselves in;

explore new embodied ways of learning their and interacting with their instrument

experience other possibilities regarding what human musical knowing may entail

experience the interaction between various internal processes and the external

environment when moving and when playing

perform in a more embodied way through an interconnected network of sensory-

motor, Somatic, and cognitive systems – a more dynamical approach

Returning to one of Johnson’s core ideas that our experience of meaning-making in

music is based on our sensorimotor experience, our feelings and our visceral

connections to our world. In this respect, he does not totally discount Skinner’s notion of

and use of concrete sensory imagery and imaginary situations in SRT. Indeed, another

core idea of his, is that our experience of meaning-making is based on our various

imaginative capacities for using sensorimotor processes to understand abstract

concepts, such as music (Johnson 2007: 12). Similarly, Somatic Movement techniques

such as SRT enable the student use her imaginative capacities to explore and

understand movement concepts such as the ones identified by Laban namely, space,

shape, time, effort, flow and apply them to music. In particular, the qualities of the

movements that she experienced during the Somatic Movement explorations can be

drawn on to create the intended quality of sound at the piano. For example, the

participant student pianist in the main study recounted his experience of moving his

fingers ‘like raindrops dripping gentle down from the sky’ during a movement exploration

and how he transformed that feeling and sensory image into sound at the piano.

Overall, the findings give a clearer indication of a theoretical basis of a Somatic-

Enactive framework and the relevance for developing a pedagogical method of

embodiment for student pianists in higher education.

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9.6 Limitations of the study

The extent to which the findings of this study can be generalized is limited. The sample

size is very small, and the idiographic nature of IPA encourages only very cautious

generalization (Smith, Flowers and Larkin 2009). However, it is possible to look at each

participant as an individual, and to identify connecting threads between them. On

reflection it might have been an idea to bring some of those threads out more clearly

and analyse them in more depth especially regarding the links between the pilot study

participants and the main study participant. This may have given the possibility for some

theoretical generalization to be made to other pianists of similar experience. On the

other hand, it was interesting to see the extent to which each participant described

similar and different things when recounting their experiences of phrasing music through

a body movement approach. Hopefully, future studies that extend the exploration of a

body movement approach to other pre-professional pianists, including those interested

in extended techniques, will provide interesting findings and can be used to explore

further similarities and differences of experience.

IPA offered me an adaptable and accessible approach to phenomenological research

and allowed me to give a detailed account that focused on the individual experiences of

my participants. However, although my aim was to present the participants’ experiences

as purely as possible, it is clear that my own ideas and prejudices influenced the

phenomenon of interest. For example, my interpretation may seem biased as I may

have been tempted to misinterpret or over-interpret the data in an attempt to reinforce

my thoughts and opinions. On another level, it may appear that participants were

influenced by me as a researcher and felt that they should tell me what I want to hear in

order to ‘help’ me ‘prove’ that my idea works. It is difficult to detect or prevent

researcher-induced bias and the highly qualitative nature of the results can make them

difficult to present in a way that is usable to researchers and practitioners and it is

important to consider the difficulty participants have expressing themselves both in

movement and in words. My use of workshop, interview and video-assisted recall

allowed for triangulation and enabled participants to reflect on their experiences. This

added to the richness of the data and helped to minimize bias and establish reliability

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and validity. As with all methodologies, however, there are built-in advantages and

disadvantages.

9.7 Implications for practice and future research

Since I used an interpretivist approach, this study treated the experiences and

circumstances of each participant as individual. As a consequence the results cannot be

considered universal. My qualitative investigation with in-depth data acquired through

workshop, interview and video-assisted recall gave the opportunity to see and hear

about the thoughts, feelings and experiences of those aspiring to be practising

musicians. It is my hope that my research will bring their experiences to the attention of

the wider music performance practice community and that the findings of the research

will prove helpful to:

deepen understanding of Somatic Movement approaches to music performance

learning and development in higher education.

raise awareness of relevance of the interdependence of Somatic Movement

principles and Enactive positions and embodied experiential learning in piano

performance education in higher education

provide concrete examples of how Somatic Movement practices can support self-

directed musical problem solving during music-making tasks such as practising

and performing musical phrasing;

inform the use of multi-sensory guided movement imagery exercises in practising

the piano at various stages of a musician’s development;

support advocacy for the embodied view of musical understanding and practice;

and

encourage the development of a Somatic–Enactive framework as a new way of

thinking about and acting upon the relevance of an embodied pedagogy for pre-

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professional music performance education, with a focus on playing the piano.

Furthermore, I hope that this research will encourage further inquiry into performers’

experiences of Somatic Movement methods to music-making tasks. The research

findings raise certain issues which could be addressed in future hermeneutic

phenomenological research, such as:

re-visiting the value of a Somatic approach in music performance education

through phenomenological enquiry into partner/ensemble work;

SRT and its application to practising and performing other instruments and the

voice through enquiry into developing listening bodies in the music performance

technique class;

further implications of the image schematic structure of music for understanding

the experience of music from the perspective of the performer;

exploration into the felt sense as a means of informing practising and performing;

a review of embodied learning and teaching strategies currently used in music

performance course in higher education;

exploration of the impact of SRT on aspects of music performance such as

performance anxiety, health and wellness, maintaining peak performance,

developing confidence, encouraging creativity, imagination, and self-efficacy;

the integration of Somatic Movement methods as an essential component of

music performance training in a technological age;

the use of Somatic Movement approaches in collaborative work between

composers, choreographers and performers; and

the place of imaginary movement and guided imagery in music-making tasks.

This study also paves the way for future studies to explore larger social and cultural

issues in music performance learning, such as dialogues across cultures, art forms and

performance practices.

266

9.8 Concluding remarks

A Somatic Movement approach that embraces Enactivist perspectives to music-making

tasks such as practising and performance enables musicians not only to fit in better with

established performance situations and practices but also to elicit fresh solutions.

These innovative solutions can be found within an awareness of the whole body from

moment to moment, noticing its response to sensory images and thoughts making

subtle shifts and changes to implement musical ideas and intentions with enhanced

confidence and clarity. As explored in this thesis, the experiences of pre-professional

musicians of a Somatic Movement approach towards musical phrasing invited a re-

evaluation of the experience of such methods on pre-professional music performance

practice and education. Seen in this way, experience of a Somatic Movement approach

coupled with Enactivist perspectives can provide a framework for the development of a

Somatic-Enactive experiential practice as a pedagogical method of embodiment for pre-

professional student musicians in higher education, with a focus on piano performance

education. Furthermore, it can provide an embodied means of encouraging co-

creativity, supporting a facilitative teaching approach, re-uniting technique and

expressivity and replacing control with awareness. This offers far-reaching benefits for

pre-professional student musicians to develop a sense of agency and to shape and

refine their own practice as reflective autonomous learners and future professional

embodied practitioners.

267

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Appendices

Appendix A

Pathways in life, music and dance performance and education

The thesis revisits an area in which I first took a research interest 20 years ago as a

music and dance coordinator in a performing arts in education team based in

Merseyside, UK. However, my passion to perform started long before that.

I was three years old when I started to attend dance classes at the local ballet school

and by the time I was eight I already knew that I wanted to be a professional dancer. It

was later, after a serious illness that I also began to show an interest in learning to play

the piano. These early experiences provided the driving force which shaped my life and

fuelled my desire to continue to study both dance and music and to combine the two

whenever possible. I was involved in multi-disciplinary work at school and in the local

community. I took part in musical theatre productions as a singer and dancer, played

the piano for dance classes and worked with dance ensembles interested in developing

new work for performance. My musical and movement learning took place both in

institutional music and dance education provision and in communities of creative artists

outside of the school environment. However, the most important aspects of my musical

development came from private piano lessons outside the institutional form of training

whilst my dance development came from both my experience at school and the

traditional form of private ballet classes at a local dance studio.

It was at school, through a Laban-based curriculum that I was introduced to the concept

of creative dance and movement improvisation (Laban 1975). I began to experience

music through free dance techniques and my teacher instilled in me the idea of

physically exploring music/sound through bodily action rather than simply memorizing

set routines to a series of counts. Significantly, due to my continuation with creative

dance ensembles and piano tuition outside school I was able to see how these two

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worlds could come together and how music and dance artists co-create new work

outside the school environment. This gave me the opportunity to experience

collaborative music and dance making which laid the foundation for the Somatic

approach to learning, teaching and performing that I developed later on together with

the Enactive approach to cognition.

I first came across the term ‘enaction’ during my undergraduate days through my study

of the educational psychologist Jerome Bruner (1915-2016) who introduced enaction as

‘learning by doing’ in his discussion of how children learn and how they can best be

helped to learn (1966, 1968). It was later that I came across the Enactive approach to

cognition that was developed by Francisco Varela, Evan Thompson and Eleanor Rosch

(1991). As an aside, and to inform the reader at this point enactivism argues that

cognition arises through a dynamic interaction between a human being and its

environment (Thompson 2010). It claims that our environment is one which we

selectively create through our capacities to interact with the world (Rowlands 2010)

rather than passively receiving information from our environment which we then

translate into internal representations. This perspective to cognition breaks down the

classic mind-body, nature-culture dichotomies and more importantly ground the insights

of phenomenology in cognitive science. In addition, it presents a powerful alternative to

cognitivism, computationalism and Cartesian dualism which focus on information-

processing dualist processes limited to the brain and draws out an convincing argument

for an embodied approach to the nature of being and knowing. Of special interest to me,

was the development by Evan Thompson (2010) and Mark Johnson (2007, 2017) who

placed emphasis on the idea that experience of the world is a result of mutual

interaction between the sensorimotor capacities of the organism and its environment. In

brief, the Enactive approach traces the origins of cognition to ways humans interact

bodily with physical and social environments they interact with. Put another way, human

and environment are understood to stand in a circular, symbiotic relationship and are

this co-arising, world, body, brain and mind are aspects of the same complex dynamic

system (van der Schyff 2017: 11). AS enactivism is an important theme in this thesis, I

will return to this discussion later but for now, I return to my story.

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During my first year of teaching music and dance in school, mostly as a classroom

music teacher and extra-curriculum dance group leader, I began to think more deeply

about how my early experiences as a performer and my interest in interdisciplinary

approaches to music education could be developed in pedagogical settings. As I

became more involved with teaching music and dance, I had some success but there

were also many disappointments. I included movement games in my music classes and

encouraged students to collaborate on music and dance projects. This resulted in an

adaptable experiential approach to music and dance education but my grasp of this way

of thinking and doing was intuitive and at the time, I found it difficult to articulate my

viewpoint to other teachers and decision-makers in the school. I had some knowledge

of theoretical resources from my study of dance and music education and broader

insights from the psychology and philosophy of education but I had little experience of

Somatic, embodied and phenomenological contexts that would enable me to establish a

theoretical foundation for guiding my understanding and development as a learner,

teacher and performer. And, in turn, allow me to communicate my thoughts and my

practice to others more clearly and robustly.

As a result, I decided to take a break from teaching to concentrate on exploring my

ideas through my piano playing and dancing. I was accepted on the post-graduate

performance course at the St Petersburg State Conservatory in Russia and this life

changing experience allowed me to explore many ideas especially regarding the

relationship between bodily action and cognition that I had begun to develop as a

teacher and performer. I began to think with and through my body and over time, I

changed the way I practised and approached performance. I began to think about how I

could shape a melodic line in the same way I shaped a port de bras in space in ballet

class. I began to think about the relationship between musical structure and

choreographic devices such as canon, imitation, accumulation, repetition and phrasing

and how movement knowledge of these devices could inform my piano playing. I began

to make strong connections between the qualities of movement and the music I made at

the piano, particularly in terms of articulation and phrasing. More specifically, I noticed a

new confidence in being able to make my own choices about musical phrasing and

pursue my ideas about what I wanted to say/express through the music and how I

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wanted to say/express it. For instance, how being aware of the way I physically

articulated a movement phrase in terms of forcefulness could inform the way I could

balance a certain amount of weight of contrapuntal lines in a Bach Fugue, or how I

could use the gliding feeling of doing a glissade (a gliding step in ballet from one foot to

the other) to help me to express the legato feel of the glissandi (in music a glide from

one pitch to another) in Kurtag’s Perpetuum Mobile (1975/1979). It was at this juncture

that I began to enjoy practising and performing much more and became very interested

in how movement-based experiences could become part of my tool kit and provide new

ways of practising and understanding the music I performed.

Exploring this idea further, in a pedagogical context I became curious about the work of

composer, musician and music educator Emile Jacque-Dalcroze (1865-1950) and

dance artist and theorist Rudolf Laban (1879-1958). Briefly, the Dalcroze approach to

music performance education is based on the premise that awareness of the moving

body is crucial to the process of unifying the musical elements and musical expression

during performance. For example, in a Dalcroze session, all aspects of music are taught

through movement exercises/games which encourage an understanding of music

through embodied practice. However, even at this stage, I felt that the Dalcroze

approach lacked a theoretical and analytical foundation on which I could build my ideas

more fully. It was here that I recognized that perhaps revisiting Laban’s work could help

me, especially with regard to his systems of understanding human movement: Laban

Movement Analysis (LMA) and Labanotation.

LMA is a system for clarifying and analysing movement within the categories of Body

(what moves and in what order), Effort (quality of movement or how the body moves

according to flow, space, time and weight), Shape (how movement changes form) and

Space (where movement travels) and Labanotation records movements in symbols,

much like sheet music for musicians. Labanotation can be used in LMA but is also used

as a separate system. At this point, it was LMA not Labanotation that I was most

interested in looking at as a means of both analysing movement and devising

movement/music explorations with a Somatic–Enactive orientation. In connection with

this, I also began to explore the work of Irmgard Bartenieff (Bartenieff and Lewis 1980;

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Hackney 2002) and Warren Lamb (Lamb and Watson 1979) who both developed and

extended LMA especially with regard to movement patterning and the meaning of

movement. This also led me to the work of psychoanalyst, Judith Kestenberg and her

system of movement profiling – a system of describing a persons’ health by observing

their body movement based on LMA language and adapted for developmental

psychology (Amighi-Kestenberg 1999). This gave me a basis on which to start to think

about how I could make sense of the movements musicians made as they engaged with

the movement-based games/exercises inspired by such embodied methods as

Dalcroze, LMA and Bartenieff, and what this could mean. In addition, Bartenieff’s work

on total body integration, namely Bartenieff Fundamentals (Hackney 2002), gave me a

starting point to consider how ‘basic body training that deals with patterning connections

in the body according to principles of efficient movement functioning within a context

which encourages personal expression and full psychophysical involvement’ (Hackney

2002: 31) might be developed in the context of music performance learning and

development. This led to my search for ways of understanding the relationship between

musicians’ experiences of these embodied games/exercises/explorations and their

thoughts, actions and feelings about the music to which they referred. This guided me

towards considering an integrated framework involving Mark Johnson’s Enactive-based

conceptual metaphor theory/Image Schemata (1987, 2007); Gendlin’s theory of the felt-

sense (1993), and Somatic theory (Hanna 1979, Mabel Todd 1937/2008, Rudolf Laban

1966/2002, Irmgard Bartenieff 1986, Joan Skinner 1979, 1999, 2005) to make sense of

the interplay between mind, body and the environment and what this could mean for

musicians and music educators.

It was at this time I revisited the idea of Enactivism and how this perspective might

extend to musical activities such as practising and performing – where musical

technique may be considered as a fundamental human sense-making capacity that

spans the sensorimotor, the social and the Somatic. In line with this I, also considered

how the Enactive approach might offer a Somatic grounding for the many approaches to

the meaning and nature of music and music performance. For example, this approach

posits a perspective on transformational nature of music that differs from the one that

informs Wallin, Merker and Brown’s biological understanding of the evolutionary

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meaning of music. In contrast to the author’s brain-centred approach, the Somatic–

Enactive perspective draws on the recent research associated with therapeutic systems

and well-being which sees the transformational nature of music as involving a more

complex set of interacting factors (see Hall 2018). Put very simply, this approach does

not focus on the perspective that music is natural and in our genes (Dawkins 2006) but

rather explores the complex ways the natural/organic, multisensory and environmental

factors including self-exploration, self-care social interaction and experience interrelate

to guide the desire to feel, sense and understand the nature of music and how we

attribute meaning to performing music and the music we perform. Seen I this way, a

Somatic–Enactive framework may allow us to explore the interplay of the musician’s

body, mind and environment in the context of ongoing cyclical processes; cycles of self-

exploration, action and reflection.

A significant part of my thinking and action from this formative period is dedicated to

exploring the application of Somatic approaches to music performance learning and

development for 21st century performers and performance educators. Here, I took part

in a Dalcroze certification course at the Julliard School and traced the influence of

Laban and other Somatics thinkers and doers in the experiential learning, and

phenomenological traditions. It was at this time that I was fortunate to experience

Skinner Releasing Technique (SRT) with Stephanie Skura. This particular approach to

movement training gained great popularity among postmodern dancers of the 1970s in

the United States. However, its roots seem to lie much earlier, in the exploration made

by Mabel Todd (1937/2008) in the 1930s into a form of Somatic education. The

principles of SRT made an impression on me, regarding my understanding of the

application of Somatic approaches to music performance learning contexts. In

particular, the use of sensory imagery, improvisation and poetry to produce or awaken

kinaesthetic experiences and awareness gave me a new way of approaching music-

making tasks such as practising, rehearsing and preparing music for performance.

In connection with this, I began to explore writers involved with embodied music

cognition and the body in philosophy revisiting the age-old debate regarding the

relationship between the human mind and body. Arguably, since Plato’s writing the

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separation of mind and body has been an important dualistic notion in Western

knowledge and culture. This separation was further theorized by philosopher Rene

Descartes (Code 1991; Grosz 1994), and mind privileged over body in his philosophical

statement "Cogito ergo sum: I think therefore I am" (Descartes, 1968: 53).

Nevertheless, some theorists have contributed other understandings of the body.

Phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1962, 1964) aimed to locate the body at the

centre of individual experience. He argued that it was the body, not simply the mind,

which understood and experienced the world claiming that mind and body were

interrelated – embodied. According to Merleau-Ponty (1962), the mind/body dualism of

Descartes could be replaced with an understanding of the ‘body-subject’ which did not

privilege cognitive activity and mind but expressed the relation of a person to his or her

world. In other words, highlighting the central role of the body in cognition and

perception. Merleau-Ponty’s work was a useful reference for me to begin to guide my

thinking about my experiences as a musician and teacher and provided a starting point

from which to think about embodied processes involved in music performance learning

and development. At this point I became curious about the work of more recent thinkers

like, Eugene Gendlin (1993,) and Mark Johnson (1987, 2007, 2017) whose approach to

embodied philosophy is also explored. In addition, I became interested in the ideas of

phenomenologist Maxine Sheets-Johnstone (2011, 2016) and her interdisciplinary

approach to dance philosophy and embodied phenomenology as well the work of

embodied music cognition researchers such as Rolf Godøy (2002) and Mark Leman

(2007; Godøy and Leman 2010). However, I found that much of my reading about

embodied music cognition at that time did not resonate fully with my experience as an

embodied musician, dancer and teacher and Somatic listener. For example, much of

the writing seemed to favour the perspective that the human body is the mediator

between mind and physical environment suggesting a separation of mind, body and the

environment rather than an ongoing enmeshment. Further, I thought at the time, that the

use of purely quantitative methods (stimulus-response) that focused on the

measurement of sound and music and, the demographic/biographical information of

participants gained by questionnaire did not seem to take into account the direct

movement experience of the participants and did not fully address the idea of the

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interplay of mind, body and environment. For example, the focus on observation of the

visual representation of movement/sound and the production of experiences and

actions that focused on an ‘outer’ reality, that is, from the listeners/observers/audiences

point of view seemed to suggest an orthodox information-processing model reminiscent

of the traditional cognitivist view discussed earlier, of the separation between ‘inner’ and

‘outer’ experience in music meaning formation and knowledge acquisition. This led me

to look elsewhere for a theoretical/practical foundation and methodology on which to

develop my thoughts and ways of deepening my understanding of embodied experience

in the context of music performance learning and development. What I needed was an

alternative framework – something that moved beyond the dichotomies of mind-body,

inner-outer perspectives and involved a symbiotic ‘soma∞social’ (relationship between

the self and the environment – I use the infinity symbol here to indicate my

understanding of the continuous interplay between these two aspects and relates to

Bartenieff’s notion of the lively ongoing interdependent interplay involved in two aspects

of moving, namely inner connectivity and outer expressivity – Hackney 2002: 34)

conception of what performing music entails. Fortunately, my reading also introduced

me to other thinkers and practitioners who challenge established frameworks of

cognition and in particular I became increasingly interested in the Enactive approach to

cognition and how an Enactive-based perspective might be applied in practical areas of

music-making such as practising and performing as a way of making sense of these

processes (Johnson 2007; Bresler 2004; Elliot; Pierce 2007; Davidson; Dogantan-Dack;

Vignement 2018). I also revisited the work of Bartenieff (Hackney 2002) and Skinner

(1979, 2005). Importantly, this early reading encouraged me to consider links between

epistemology and the embodied experience of performing music.

Just before I began my PhD studies I revisited the seminal text on the embodied

approach to cognition, The Mind in the Body by Mark Johnson (2007) and the certain

aspects of enactivism which he draws on as well as ideas of key thinkers in

phenomenology and psychology – especially Heidegger, Kant, Sheets-Johnstone and

Gendlin. Johnson develops these insights in conjunction with the emerging alternative

perspective on bodily-derived Image Schemata based on his conceptual metaphor

theory (see Johnson 1987 and Lakoff and Johnson 1999) as well as the new, at the

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time, psychophysical thinking in the philosophy of the implicit and the notion of the

bodily felt sense (see Gendlin 1993). In doing so, he goes some way to breaking down

classic mind-body dichotomies, and attempts to ground the insights of phenomenology

in cognitive science and psychophysical theory developing a meeting point for science

and lived experience.

One of the reasons I became more interested in the Enactivist approach to music

cognition was the opportunity it gave me to explore an alternative to the cognitivist

viewpoint that sees cognition as primarily involving processes of computation and

representation limited to the brain. It is important to note here, that while I acknowledge

the neuroscientific aspect involved in the Enactive perspective provides valuable insight

into the scientific study of brain-based mechanisms involved in the cognitive process

underlying music, I have chosen not to explore this aspect in any detail in this thesis.

This is because the cognitive neuroscience of music is the scientific study of brain-

based mechanisms involved in the cognitive process underlying music. Further, it relies

on direct observation of the brain through such techniques as functional magnetic

resonance imaging (fMRI) and electroencephalography (EEG) (Peretz and Zatorre

2003). As such, this aspect of enactivism does not sit well with the focus of this thesis

which is to explore music performers lived experiences of embodied approaches to

learning and development. In addition, although direct observation is used as a

technique it is the interplay of the body/mind/environment as seen in practice rather

than observing what goes on in the brain.

In exploring Johnson’s work further, I began to take a closer look at the work of

American philosopher and psychologist Eugene Gendlin (1926-2017). Gendlin

developed ways of thinking about and working with living process, the bodily felt sense

and the philosophy of the implicit. I became interested in his notion of the bodily felt

sense and how learning, in terms of lasting positive change, can arise from a person’s

ability to access a non-verbal bodily feel of the issues they are attending to (Gendlin

1993: 21-33). Gendlin call this intuitive body-feel the ‘felt-sense’. For him, humans’

ongoing interaction with the world provides ongoing validity, each move, from pumping

blood to discussing philosophy implying a next step, an organic carrying forward. Their

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coming-to-know involves an innate principle of body-sense special to the human

organism. It is important to notice here that when Gendlin uses the word ‘body’ he uses

to talk about how we feel our bodies from inside (Gendlin 1993: 23). In other words, he

sees people as essentially self-directed individuals that feel this carrying forward both in

the move itself and in the feedback it generates: at each moment, it is possible to feel

how things are moving and what is implied next (Gendlin ibid.). The animate process

moves by steps. What emerges in one step does not usually solve anything, but it does

change the felt sense and from that changed sense another step can emerge (Gendlin

1993: 27). By contrast, an inanimate article has no felt-sense of change or movement

within it. For example, a computer is made and usually operated by people (at the

moment) and cannot move itself from a bodily-sense of knowing and experiencing the

world. Gendlin’s viewpoints allowed me to reflect on ways we come-to-know and I

began to think more deeply about how we seem to attach more importance to what we

say and see rather than what we do. In the context of practising a piece of music for

example, how often do we allow our inner feelings or ‘felt-sense’ to inform how we play

a particular crescendo or how we weight a specific musical accent. Usually, we rely on

what we see in the score and try to assess what we think the composer wants in terms

of sound qualities. Sometimes even talking to ourselves giving verbal feedback on the

sound we are producing. How often do we allow ourselves to feel how the music is

moving and what is implied next? A similar example can be drawn from a one-to-one

music lesson where the teacher gives verbal feedback about the sound the student is

producing based on the visual interpretation of the score.

Indeed Gendlin develops such insights into a powerful critique of modern world view so

focused on what we say and what we see that he seems to suggest that we have

adopted an epistemology that reduces all of knowledge to a rationalizing framework. I

found Gendlin’s view interesting and began to think more about how we come-to-know

how to play a particular musical phrase in a piece of music. Do we rely on what we see

in the score? How do we interpret what we see in the score? Do we depend on aural

and verbal feedback? How often do we use non-verbal feedback such as kinaesthetic or

proprioceptive to inform our playing? How often do we play with movement ideas to

express our musical ideas? How often do we allow our musical ideas to emerge from

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irrational, messy play or wild creative music-making? Clearly, rationality has a part to

play in music performance but I agree with Gendlin to a certain extent that the modern

world view seems to place more emphasis on what we say and what we see and that

more focus on what we do and what we feel may help to rebalance the disembodied

approach to music performance learning. At this point, I also became interested in the

work of Maxine Sheets-Johnson (2016). In particular in her discussion about

interdisciplinary perspectives on animate nature. Here, she suggests that we are not

merely rational systematic entities but are first and foremost, complex embodied entities

who come to understand and know the world through the ways we move, feel, think and

interact with the environment (Sheets-Johnstone 1999, 2010, 2016; see also Johnson

2007, 2017). Coming across Sheets-Johnstone’s work allowed me to begin to think

more thoroughly about the relevance of phenomenology in terms of the ‘lived

experience’ and learning and in particular about the relevance of movement in the

embodied experience of learning to perform and performing music.

At this stage, I also began to think more deeply about the meaning of experience in the

context of learning and development which might help me to situate and develop my

ideas alongside existing pedagogical/learning theory (Dewey 2005, 2007; Bruner 1960,

1997; Kolb 1983; Schön 1983; Beard and Wilson 2013; Habermas 1975; Stenhouse

1971, 1975, 1983). And, consider how these ideas relate to today’s music performance

learning contexts in higher education and how can they be applied to help today’s music

performance students meet the challenges of their work as a future professionals (Kolb;

Mezirow (2000, Mezirow and Taylor 2009 - emphasis of reflection on practice and

practice of transformative learning, learning that focuses on practicality as well as

theory); Schön 2009, 2017 – the reflective practitioner, learning-in practice, reflection-in-

action).

Subsequently, in order to engage in critical debate with the issues discussed above and

to find out more about musicians’ experiences of a Somatic–Enactive approach to

learning, I enrolled in the PhD course at Goldsmiths University of London, where I was

able to deepen my understanding of Somatics, embodied experience of music

performance, experiential, transformative and reflective learning theory and practice,

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enactivism, phenomenology and phenomenological research. In addition, I was able to

explore pre-professional musicians’ experiences of a Somatic–Enactive approach to

music performance learning and development with a particular focus on music phrasing

in piano playing, through empirical phenomenological research studies. In broadening

the focus of embodied practice for musicians to include the everyday experience I

chose to use a phenomenological methodology as a means to investigate the Somatic–

Enactive approach as I felt that this would give me the opportunity to robustly illuminate

music students experiences of areas such as self-belief, social interaction, health and

well-being, physicalizing sound, student autonomy, ownership and authenticity, self-

acceptance and feeling-at-ease-in one’s skin. By acknowledging the important yet

understudied methods by which musicians practice and experience musical phrasing

and choose what stories to tell through the music they play. I hope the discussion in this

thesis will provide a meaningful context for understanding a Somatic–Enactive approach

from the point of view of the musicians who experienced it.

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Appendix B

The phenomenon of musical phrasing

One of the reasons I chose to focus on the phenomenon of musical phrasing is that it is

widely recognized as a performance issue that has an effect on the communicative

aspect of a music performance (Gabrielsson and Juslin 1996: 68-91; Cook 2014:176

and 276). Further, there is considerable literature on this performance aspect but yet, it

is still surrounded by ambiguity and mystery regarding how performers can enhance this

skill (for a historical overview on the practice of musical phrasing in performance

pedagogy, see Doğantan-Dack 2002 and 2012; Vial 2008; Burkhart 2005: 3–12;

Rothstein 1989; Sessions 1972; Cone 1968; Dalcroze 1921; Stetson 1905: 315). The

way that musical phrasing is employed by performers can have significant

consequences on the performance outcome and often provides a challenge that is

frequently encountered while practising a piece of music (Levy 1995:150). For instance

in the choices performers make regarding the identification of departures and arrivals of

phrases; in their decisions about how to shape identified phrases using variations in

dynamics and duration (lengthening of certain notes beyond their written value); their

control the overall rhythmic flow; and the options they consider regarding junctures

between phrases through the such techniques as overlap/elision, dis-joint, lead-in,

extension/expansion and re-interpretation. These techniques were popularized largely

due to Rothstein’s Phrase Rhythm in Tonal Music (1989), in which phrase analysis is

not only raised to a new level of precision by considering the rhythmic motion of

harmonic change, such as cadence, together with a sense of completeness in pitch or

melody as a signal for the completion of a phrase, but also applied to the study of

historical styles (Burkhart 2005: 4). However, this means of looking at phrasing is

focused on an abstract analysis of the score rather than an embodied or sensory

approach.

For instance, Burkhart (2005: 5) explains the use of these techniques from a

performer’s perspective in his phrase analysis of Chopin’s A♭ Major Mazurka, Op. 59,

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No. 2. For example, he comments that the very first phrase (bars 1–8) is composed in a

very unusual way. He suggests that the phrase ends on the B♭ of bar 8 beat 2, but that

note is treated to a tiny ‘extension’ that endures until bar 9 beat 1 (Figure 2.5).

Figure 2.5 Chopin’s Mazurka Op. 59, No.2 Bars 1–12

Revised and fingered by Rafael Joseffy (1852–1915). Complete works for the piano, Volume 2 (LMC 280); Mazurkas. New York: G. Schirmer 1915. Plate 25503

He points out that something unexpected also happens at the end of the second phrase

in bar 16, suggesting that the leap up to the high G on beat 2 impedes the sense of a

perfect cadence. Twice more the phrase tries to end and it finally succeeds on the third

attempt at bar 20 when the high C confirms the tonic, showing that the phrase has been

‘extended’ beyond its expected length (Figure 2.6).

Figure 2.6 Chopin’s Mazurka Op.59, No.2, bars 13–24

An example of what is called a ‘lead-in’ – a small group of notes that link one phrase

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with the next – can be seen from bar 20 beat 3 until the first beat of bar 23. Burkhart

points out that lead-ins are common in tonal music and that they usually occur within the

last bar of a phrase, but Chopin’s lead-in here is unusually extended for an extra two

bars (Figure 2.6). Burkhart illustrates the technique of ‘overlap’ or ‘elision’ by drawing

our attention to bar 89 where the phrase ends and the next phrase begins in the same

bar. When two successive phrases do this they are said to ‘overlap’.

Burkhart’s analytical model is one way by which musicians can approach musical

phrasing, but relying on the score for objective information or clues can have its

drawbacks due to an overdependence on what the musician can see in the score rather

than what she can hear or experience/feel. In contrast, the kinaesthetic model of

musical phrasing posed in this thesis is based on the individual expression of a

movement and challenges the reliance on visualism and objective information gathered

from the score (Smith 1989:121-124).

In support of a more embodied viewpoint, Doğantan-Dack (2012: 12) suggests that

musical phrasing involves the performer silently hearing the music behind the notation

rather than merely translating into sound the symbols written on the score. By this she

seems to imply that as a visual representation, the score cannot capture the quality of

the sounds making up the coherent structure we perceive as music, and in that sense

phrasing depends on a musical comprehension and interpretation of the total aural

effect of the visual symbols on the notated score. Doğantan-Dack’s suggestion goes

some way to shedding light on the embodied nature of musical phrasing but stops short

at grasping the fundamental movement aspects of space and shape and focuses more

keenly on the musical element of rhythm (Doğantan-Dack 2012). Nonetheless, she

does refer to the dynamics of the musical phrase and bodies moving in physical space

Doğantan-Dack 2012: 28) which gives a clear indication that phrasing, which shapes

the notes in accordance with their directional tendencies, could be compared to the

movement of physical bodies set in motion. However, it is not clear what is meant by

‘physical bodies’ and in this sense it seems that she is referring to ‘physical bodies’ as

objects such as balls that are thrown into the air depicting a trajectory before falling to

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the ground rather than the personal expression of a human movement that involves

motion in connection with the environment and with spatial patterns and links of spatial

tension as the musicians shapes music in performance.

With regard to shaping phrase, Edward Cone in his influential Musical Form and

Musical Performance (1968), uses visual representations of the dynamics of a musical

phrase which are depicted through tracing an intensity curve – a practice that has been

revived in research concerning shaping music in performance, as in John Rink’s notion

of ‘intensity curves’, for example (1995: 217–238). Although Cone’s discussion is based

on the premise that musical form is essentially rhythmic rather than thematic or

harmonic he relates the musical phrase to the movement phrase in that his theory, in

tonal music, is concerned with the expansions of a pervasive upbeat/anacrusis –

downbeat/crucis and follow through – metacrusis pattern. He states that:

If, as I believe, there is a sense in which a phrase can be heard as an upbeat to its own cadence, larger and larger sections can also be apprehended. A completely unified composition could then constitute a single huge rhythmic impulse, completed at the final cadence. (Cone 1968: 26)

Although it seems an oversimplification, this basic design can underlie and animate the

idea that a musical phrase is based on an organic movement principle (such as a single

breath, or a single perceivable units of movement which are in some sense meaningful.

They begin and end while containing a through line Hackney 2002: 239), that supports

the melodic and harmonic shape of the phrase and justifies its acceptance as a formal

unit. Cone suggests that the principle of this idea can be based on ‘the highly abstract

concept of musical energy’ (ibid.: 26). Such an approach to musical phrasing is by no

means new and Cone recognizes the influence of Riemann (1916) and, in his preface,

acknowledges a debt to the composer Roger Sessions in locating the origin of his own

concept of phrase. I found the way that Cone equates his notion of musical phrasing

with energy and impulse useful for my thesis. He seems to understand the grounding of

musical phrasing in terms of physical movement and gives a useful explanation of his

understanding through a concrete analogy of throwing and catching a ball although,

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unlike Mocquereau, he relates the movement of the ball to the action of the human

movement of throwing and catching rather than the movement of the ball itself. Here I

quote him at length:

If I throw a ball and you catch it, the completed action must consist of three parts; the throw, the transit and the catch. There are, so to speak, two fixed points; the initiation of the energy and the goal toward which it is directed; the time and distance between them are spanned by the moving ball. In the same way, the typical musical phrase consists of an initial downbeat ( ⁄ ), a period of motion ( ͝ ), and a point of arrival marked by a cadential downbeat ( \ ). Unlike the differentiated transit of the ball, the musical passage is marked by stronger and weaker points ( – ͜ ), but all of these are structurally light in comparison with the accented initial and terminal points … If the cadence, as the goal of motion, is felt as even stronger than the initial downbeat, then the phrase does indeed become in a sense an expanded upbeat followed by a downbeat, the initial downbeat, thereby accepting a reduced role as ‘the downbeat of the upbeat.’ (Cone 1968: 26–27)

Cone goes on to suggest that, following the ball-playing analogy, ‘we can imagine the

thrower’s wind-up as a preliminary anacrusis ( ^ ), and the catcher’s rebound as a

ending (v)’, highlighting the differences in character between these two rhythmic

elements, as well as between these two on the one hand and the period of motion ( ͝ )

on the other. Although, as he mentions, not all phrases can be considered in this way

because of the bigger picture of a composition as a whole, the idea that the form of a

phrase – which he depicts as ( ^ ) / ͝ \ ( v ) – can be quite useful when thinking

about the motion of a musical phrase in terms of a personal expression of a movement..

As mentioned earlier in this chapter, Sessions (1972) clarifies the basis of phrasing by

describing a phrase as a motion with a beginning, middle and end, and that the motion

of the phrase is a constant movement towards a goal (ibid.: 13). This implies that a

phrase (a group of musical notes) has some degree of completeness and a strong

sense of beginning and ending. Returning to Burkhart’s (2005: 4) concept of phrase for

a moment, we can see that he also perceives phrase as having a sense of

completeness, suggesting that a phrase can be described as ‘any group of measures,

including a group of one, or even possibly a fraction of one that has a degree of

structural completeness’. More directly, he continues, ‘what counts is the sense of

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completeness we hear in the pitches not the notation we see on the page … to be

complete, such a group must have an ending of some kind’. In this case, Burkhart is

referring to tonal music and uses the idea of cadence as an indicator of the ending of a

phrase. He also points out that a phrase is not only pitches but also has dimensions of

rhythmic motion. Furthermore, each phrase in a work contributes to the work’s larger

structure.

Although Burkhart’s concept of phrase highlights the significance of rhythm in terms of a

sense of motion, for instance the sense of completeness we hear at the end of the

phrase in terms of slowing down, pausing or leading-in to the next phrase in contrast,

Sessions’ theory equates completeness with a fundamental movement component:

breath. In parallel with Cone, he incorporates the experience of the continuity of breath

as the impulse to initiate a phrase, to animate its shape, pattern and contour, and to

indicate its completion (Sessions 1972: 19). Similarly, Dalcroze also saw the potential

power of breath in perceiving musical phrase, pointing out the close link to motor

anacrusis – the evident or disguised preparation necessary to any act of movement. He

said that breathing ‘assures the preparation, cessation and continuation of phrase …

the shading of sensations, sentiments and heartfelt emotions’ (Jaques-Dalcroze 1939:

14).

Dalcroze expresses this way of thinking about musical phrase in terms of a sense of

departure and arrival rather than a beginning and ending and, in contrast to Burkhart

and Sessions, focused his attention on the moment before departure rather than on the

moment before arrival – the ‘motor anacrusis’. Perhaps the idea of motor anacrusis –

the disguised preparation necessary for any action of movement – highlights differences

in the way performers experience phrase. In our conversations, the participants did not

refer to the idea of movement preparation in relation to phrasing although they did

mention the physical aspect of ‘breath’, and that it can be linked to the onset and

cessation of phrases in terms of inhalation and exhalation. Similarly, Pierce (2007) uses

breath as an analogy of a musical performance phrase, linking the identification of

phrase in performance to the process of inhalation and exhalation. She refers to the

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elasticity of this process in terms of the variety of ways we can use our breath, for

example in the way we can elongate a weary sigh, expel air randomly while laughing,

hold our breath in fear or anticipation or take a sharp gulp in surprise. In this context, it

would seem that a single breath can also be linked to a sense of completeness insofar

as each breath we take involves a complete cycle of inhalation and exhalation. On this

level, it seems the constant motion of inhalation and exhalation can reflect the

constantly changing shape of the body of a musician as she shapes a musical phrase in

during performance.

Dalcroze helped his students to connect musical phrasing to the physical movements of

their bodies through a series of movement exercises and games outlined in Method

Jacque-Dalcroze: Scales, Tonalities, Phrasing and Nuance, translated by R.M.

Abramson in 1968 and revisited by M.-L. Bachmann in her book Dalcroze Today (1991).

Here are some examples taken from my experience of working with Abramson at the

Juilliard School in New York:

Outline a melodic contour with your hand or foot or other body parts such as

elbows, knees or shoulder.

Arc a musical phrase with your whole arm to show the departure and arrival

points of the phrase.

Simply breathe in and out to experience the length of a musical phrase.

Combine arcing a musical phrase with the hand and breathing.

Imagine singing a musical phrase while tracing the dynamic shaping with a body

part or by tracing patterns on the floor by travelling around the space in the music

studio.

Either alone or with a partner expand and contract a stretchy band to express the

tension and release you hear in the music.

Using different sizes and weights of balls trace the dynamic shaping of a phrase,

paying particular attention to accentuation by bouncing or throwing the ball for

example.

Pass a ball between partners so that one person takes the ball at the perceived

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phrase juncture.

Try all the above exercises using different levels. For example, outline a melodic

contour with your knee while lying on the floor, with your chest while kneeling,

and the top of your head while standing on demi-pointe.

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Appendix C

Participant information sheet

Exploring pre-professional musicians’ experiences of a body

movement approach and sensory imagery as a practice method for

musical phrasing

This is an invitation to take part in a research project involving pre-professional musicians studying music performance at university. My name is Marilyn Wyers and I am a PhD candidate at Goldsmiths University of London. I am interested in pre-professional musicians’ experience of somatic approaches to music-making tasks such as practising and performing, and especially in those experiences which they think are the most helpful to them as future practitioners. Before you decide to take part you need to understand why the research is being done and what it would involve for you. Please take time to read the following information carefully. Ask questions if anything you read is not clear or would like more information and, take time to decide whether or not to take part. I am hoping to involve 10-12 undergraduate music performance students in their first year of study, in a series of 7 body movement workshops during the academic year. My plan is to follow this up with a series of 3 body movement workshops with an individual music performance student. I want to observe what you do in the workshops, talk to you about what it is like to take part in the workshops and what your own experiences are of this. I would like you to take part in 7 somatic movement workshops throughout the academic year and to interview you after the workshops. I would also like to use a range of activities such as video-recording the workshops and reflective discussion as well as taking audio recordings of the interviews and self-reviewing your participation in the workshops. I hope to learn a lot from you about what it means to take part in a body movement approach to music-making tasks as a pre-professional music performance student. I will then write-up my PhD, present my research at various conferences, write articles and perhaps even a book, to share what I have learnt with many others, including music performance students like you. In this way my project will give people a better understanding of music performance students’ experiences from music performance student’s own point of view. Here are some questions you may have:

Why have I been invited? You have been invited because you showed an initial interest in taking part in the research after the seminar I presented on body movement approaches to music performance, which you attended.

Do I have to say ‘yes’ to participating in the workshops and talking to you? It is up to you to decide. I will describe the study and go through the information sheet, which I will give to you. I will then ask you to sign a consent form to show you agreed to take part. No one will mind if you don’t want to take part. You can also change your mind at any time, without giving a reason.

What will I have to do if I take part?

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I hope that you may want to be involved in all the workshops, which I plan to present once a month. The workshops will last two hours and you will be involved in practical movement exercises that explore implementing musical phrasing ideas and choices.

Where and when will we meet? We will meet in one of the larger music practice rooms or the recital room at Goldsmiths. Dates and times can be arranged to suit you and the other participants.

Who will be there? I will be there and the other participants. It may be that sometimes there will be an audio/visual engineer there too.

Will you tell anyone what I say or show anyone what I do? This study involves the audio and video recording of your participation in the workshops and of your interview/s with me. As the audio/visual data is an important part of this study I hope that you may give your permission for me to use your name, images and media examples from the audio/video recordings and quotes from the interviews in the write-up of my PhD, and in presentations and articles for educational awareness. I will ask you to sign a separate consent form to show that you agree to this. You can decide not to sign this form, and can change your mind about granting your permission at any time.

What will you do with the audio/visual materials? The audio/visual materials will be stored safely on a password protected computer known only by me. You may want to get a copy of these for yourself.

Will anyone reading your PhD be able to recognise me? If you sign the audio/visual consent and release form, yes. If you do not sign this form, no, because you will have a different name and your images will be blurred.

Who is organising and funding the study? This project is self-funded as part of my PhD research project.

What are the possible disadvantages and risks of taking part? You may feel uncomfortable taking part in movement exercises that you don’t usually do as part of your regular music-making tasks. Risks may include distress in reviewing uncomfortable memories and feelings.

What are the possible benefits of taking part? I cannot promise that the study will help you but the information I get will help to increase the understanding of a body movement approach to music-making tasks.

What if there is a problem? In the first instance you can contact me, and I will try to resolve the problem. My email is mazziemusic@hotmail.com and my mobile telephone number is 07703523979. However, if you wish to make a more formal complaint you can do this by contacting my supervisor Dr John Jessel at j.jessel@gold.ac.uk or call him on 020 7919 7336 or the Goldsmiths Appeals and Complaints team at appeals@gold.ac.uk or call them on 020 7078 5062.

What will happen to the results of the research? The results will be written-up in a thesis, presented for my PhD examination and on a successful outcome, an electronic copy will be stored in the University’s archive. You may also like me to send you a copy of the results, which I can do at any time after my examination.

Dated: 12 October 2010

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Appendix D

Informed participant consent form example

I, the undersigned, confirm that (please tick as appropriate):

1. I have read and understand the information about the research project: Exploring pre-

professional musicians’ experiences of a body movement approach and sensory

imagery as a practice method for musical phrasing, as provided in the Information

Sheet dated 12 October 2010.

2. I have been given the opportunity to ask questions about the project and my participation.

3. I voluntarily agree to participate in the project.

4. I understand I can withdraw at any time without giving reasons and that I will not be

penalised for withdrawing not will I be questioned on why I have withdrawn.

5. The procedures regarding confidentiality have been clearly explained to me and I

understand that for the purposes of this study, my comments and images will not be

anonymous.

6. Separate terms of consent for interviews and audio/visual data collection and release have

been explained and provided to me.

7. The use of the data in research, publications, sharing and archiving has been explained.

8. I understand that others in the wider research community will have access to this data.

9. Select only one of the following:

I would like my name used and understand what I have said, done or written as

part of this study will be used in Marilyn Wyers’ PhD thesis and other research

outputs so that anything I have contributed to this project can be recognised.

I do not want my name used in this project

10. I, along with the researcher, agree to sign and date this informed consent form.

Participant:

_______________________ ________________________ _________________

Name of participant Signature Date

Researcher:

_______________________ _________________________ _________________

Name of researcher Signature Date

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Appendix E

Written reflective/participant background preparatory exercise

example

Please complete all items either by inserting your written response or

ticking/circling the relevant items.

Name:

Age:

Gender you identify with:

Course currently studying (for example, BMus):

Year of study:

How long have you been playing/singing?

Can you tell me a little about your background?

What would you say you level of performance is at the moment?

What would you like to improve?

Using three words how would you describe your playing/singing?

Using three words how have others described your playing/singing?

Do you have any prior experience of body movement approaches to music

performance learning?

If yes, what was the most important thing you learnt?

How would you describe your understanding of a musical phrase?

How would you describe your understanding of shaping a musical phrase

in performance?

How is what you have learnt so far relevant to implementing your musical

phrasing choices with improved security and clarity?

What one question about musical phrasing remains uppermost in your

thoughts?

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Appendix F

Ethical approval letter

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Appendix G

Consent and release form for use of video/audio materials example

Without expectation of compensation or other payment, now or in the future, I hereby

give my consent to Marilyn Wyers to use my image and likeness and/or any interview

statements from me in her PhD thesis and other research outputs. This consent

includes, but is not limited to:

a) Permission to interview, photograph, make an audio/video recording of me during the

workshops and/or record my voice;

b) Permission to use my name, and

c) Permission to use quotes from the interview/s or excerpts from such quotes, the

video and audio recordings and images of me and recordings of my voice in her PhD

thesis and other research outputs.

This consent is given in perpetuity (with no fixed maturity date), and does not need prior

approval from me.

Name: ___________________________________________________________

Address: ___________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________

Signature: ___________________________________________________________

Date: _________________________________________________

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Appendix H

Phenomenological versus ethnographic research approaches

Phenomenological research approach

Ethnographic research

approach

The goal of phenomenological

research is to fully understand the essence of some phenomena.

This is usually accomplished

through long, intensive individual interviews.

The goal of ethnographic research is to

describe and interpret a cultural or social group.

Ethnographers spend extensive time in the

setting being studied and use observations, interviews and other analyses to understand the nature of the culture.

The purpose is to describe and interpret the experiences of participants in order to understand the essence of the experience as perceived by the participants.

The basis is that there are multiple

ways of interpreting the same experience, and that the meaning of that experience to each participant is what constitutes reality (their lived world) (Moustakas, 1994: 13).

Ethnography is an in-depth description and interpretation of cultural patterns and meanings within a culture or social group.

The main emphasis is on groups and

specific cultural themes.

A phenomenological research question focuses on what is essential for the meaning of the event, episode or interaction. It also focuses on understanding the participants’ voice. What is their experience like? How can one understand and describe what happens to them from their own point of view? (Robson, 2002: 195)

The question can be stated directly

or less directly but usually there is

An ethnographic research question consists of foreshadowed questions, which are initially general and are subject to change as the study is conducted.

Once the question is established, the researcher designs data collection by determining the nature of the research setting, how to enter the setting, how to select participants, how to obtain data and how to analyse it.

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a single, central question in the research. Several sub-questions are used to orient the researcher in collecting data and framing the results.

Participants are selected because they have lived the experiences being investigated, are willing to share their thoughts about the experiences and can articulate their conscious experiences.

Often participants are from the

same setting but multi-settings are not uncommon. Typically, between 5 and 25 individuals are interviewed (Smith, Flowers and Larkin, 2009).

Once the research setting has been determined and the researcher has spent some time in the setting, some of the individuals are selected for more intensive observation and/or interviews.

These participants, usually between 5 and

10, are selected through purposeful sampling to provide an in-depth understanding of the culture that is being studied so that the setting and the participants reflect the culture that is being studied.

Data is obtained by personal, in-depth, semi structured or unstructured interview.

The interviews are usually long

and the researcher may have several interview sessions with each participants.

Because of the heavy reliance on

this single method of data collection, it is important that the researcher is skilled at interviewing.

The interviews are audio or/and

video recorded.

Data is obtained by:

o Observing a culture for weeks, months, even years;

o Interaction with and interviewing members of the culture;

o Analysing documents and artefacts. The researcher engages in extensive work

in the naturally occurring setting taking field notes; detailed recordings of observed behaviour.

The researcher could be a participant

observer or a complete observer. Interviews could consist of key informant interviews, life-history or focus group interviews.

Taken from Holstein, J. A., and Gubrium, J. F. (1994) Phenomenology, ethnomethodology, and interpretative practice. In N. K. Denzin and Y. S. Lincoln, (eds), The Handbook of Qualitative Research, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

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Appendix I

Further details of the design and implementation of pilot study

The choice of music

Many previous studies of the relationship between musical phrasing and the idea of

movement have used music from the eighteenth and nineteenth-century western art

music repertoire (Rothstein 1989; Hatten 2004; Burkhart 2005; Doğantan-Dack 2011).

As a way of balancing this, the pilot study concentrates on western classical piano

music from the beginning and end of the twentieth and beginning of the twenty-first

centuries. Within this scope the study aims to explore music of different styles and

periods. Pieces for solo piano were used so that I, as a pianist, could perform the pieces

live during the workshop and so that phrase lengths were not limited by physical breath.

Additionally, the pieces were chosen because of their respective composers’ changing

attitudes to established compositional devices such as balanced phrasing and cadences

associated with western major and minor scales and the established performance

practice of arcing phrases with a slight rallentando at the end. Finally, the pieces were

chosen primarily for their characteristic combinations and the nature of their phrase

structure, from straightforward to more complex. Here is a brief overview of some of the

characteristics and phrase elements that prompted the choice of the music.

E. Satie, Gnossienne No.1 (1893/1913)

I have included this piece because of its unusual, for the time, lack of time signature and

bar lines. The phrase structure is relatively clear though not completely unambiguous. In

some ways, it is straightforward and the melodic line and the left-hand accompaniment

coincide easily (Figure 4.1). However, the exact position of the phrase boundaries is

unclear, thus enabling a discussion (both verbal and in movement) about deliberate

ambiguity.

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Figure 4.1 First two lines of E. Satie Gnossienne No. 1

Published by Paris: Rouart, Lerolle and Cie. 1913

N. March, Diversions (2010), Hornetmusiq Press

This extract is post-tonal and the harmonic progressions are unpredictable. Although

the whole-tone harmonic language presented in the first five bars is explored throughout

the piece and there is an occasional reference to jazz harmony, especially in the use of

added 9ths, 11ths, and 13ths, the harmonic structure is not tonal and identifying the

departure and arrival of phrases is ambiguous (Figure 4.2). Changes in meter in every

bar also add to the complexity of identifying phrase structure and frequent

silences/stillnesses are often misleading with regard to phrase departure, arrivals and

junctures, thus enabling observation of participants’ movement in response to complex

post-tonal phrasing choices during performance.

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Figure 4.2 March, Diversions, bars 1–5 showing whole-tone harmonic language and added 9th

and 13th in bar 4

Introducing the pilot study participants

The six participants in the pilot study were Minna, Jacq, Mercedes, Joey, Tunday and

Esteban. Their musical backgrounds were similar yet diverse and their motivation to

become professional musicians wasvaried. The fact that they are all composers was

coincidental. The following accounts were taken from their preparatory reflexive

exercise, which involved writing a brief account of their musical journeys so far. The

accounts were told in their own voice.

Minna: I am a soprano vocalist and composer. My interest in singing began

when I was about seven years old during impromptu ‘band’ sessions with my

cousin. I played all sorts of instruments we found in the kitchen – things like

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kettles and spoons and other objects we could hit were used to beat out rhythms

and experiment with percussive sounds. It was my cousin’s suggestion to try to

add vocals to our improvisations and he inspired me to sing a song about a kettle

or a spoon. It was this experience that first ignited my interest in singing and

improvisation and after that event it’s just been increasing and increasing.

Jacq: I am a soprano vocalist and pianist. From the moment I was born my

father sang to me, so hearing singing around the house was very much a part of

my early musical experiences. My real passion for singing started when I heard

my father singing in the shower one day. I heard him singing La donna è mobile

from the opera Rigoletto by Verdi and thought that it sounded amazing and

wanted to sing, like him, from that moment on. I continued to have singing

lessons when I moved to the UK to go to university but after a year of studying

medicine I decided to change career paths and follow my dream of becoming a

professional classical singer.

Mercedes: I am a flautist and composer. My interest in music began when I was

four years old in my home country when I heard my cousin playing the piano. I

asked my mother if I could start piano lessons and I remember sitting up on the

piano stool and looking at the musical symbols and wondering what it was all

about. After a year of having piano lessons, I stopped playing altogether; then, at

the age of 10, when I moved to another country I went to audition at a local

conservatory and was told that I was too old to start to play the piano. Even

though I was extremely disappointed, I decided that I would try to learn another

instrument instead. After that, I started flute lessons almost straight away. After a

while, I felt I was struggling with formal lessons so I decided to continue playing

the flute on my own before taking up lessons again with a different teacher prior

to studying for my BA in music performance.

Joey: I am a saxophonist, pianist and composer. I began playing the piano when

I was 10 years old and after about five years I wanted to learn something new. I

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was listening to jazz at the time so I decided to learn to play the saxophone. My

interest in composition came much later during my A-level music course. I vividly

remember composing a piece for choir and receiving a good mark for my choral

piece which motivated me to continue composing as well as performing music as

a career.

Tunday: I am a saxophonist, pianist and songwriter. I started playing the piano

when I was eight years old because there was a piano in the village church. I

really wanted to play the saxophone and when I was given money as an 18th

birthday gift from a cousin, I went out and bought my first saxophone. I come

from a spiritual background and the church plays a central role in my life and I

remember experiencing a spiritual journey during my teenage years during which

I was trying to find out who I was and my place in the world. My passion for the

saxophone came out of this spiritual journey as I found a pathway that involved

performing music and writing songs as a therapy.

Esteban: I am a pianist. I started playing the piano when I was nine years old. I

was encouraged by my parents to take up the piano after playing the guitar for

many years and writing songs with my friend. My parents recognized that I had

an interest in becoming a professional musician and although I had a passion for

sport, I decided to audition to a conservatory of music. I passed the audition and

started piano lessons there in the junior department. I did quite well and

progressed with honours before continuing my piano studies at university.

(Esteban brought so much energy to the group. He was only involved in one

workshop and unfortunately I have very little interview data; however, his

enthusiasm and sense of fun influenced the group experience and therefore I

have included him as a participant).

The participants all had experience as solo performers in a variety of contexts ranging

from classical recitals to jazz club gigs and pop concerts and have both established and

contemporary works in their repertoires. One of the reasons they decided to be involved

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in this research project was that they wanted to explore different ways of improving their

performance skills and were willing to share and communicate their thoughts verbally

and participate fully in the movement/music workshops and subsequent interviews.

None of them had experienced dance or movement as part of their training as music

performers and most of their preparation time was spent practising how to overcome

technical issues.

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Appendix J

Concerns of the KMP Shape Flow Design category illustrated

by the participants

1) The mover’s interaction with her/his surrounding personal space with regard to

proximity (i.e. near, intermediate or far reach space).

Near space is defined as space which is close to the body. Movements

done in near space include hair twisting, hand wringing, scratching or

touching parts of the body, all of which occur without extension of the

arms or legs (Figure 4.3).

Figure 4.3 Jacq moving in her near space

Intermediate space is that space which is reached with a moderate

degree of extension of the extremities. It is between near and reach

space. Movement such as typing on a computer or washing dishes are

conducted in intermediate space (Figure 4.4).

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Figure 4.4 Anu moving in her intermediate space

Far reach space is the space used when one reaches out as far as one

can. Strenuous physical tasks often require moving in reach space.

Jumping jacks, window washing, ball throwing, karate kicks, boxing

punches and playing the piano require movers to stretch out into reach

space (Figure 4.5).

Figure 4.5 Joey moving in his far reach space

2) The basic design of spatial pathways in terms of centrifugal (movements

directed away from the body: opening/unfolding) (Figure 4.6) and

centripetal (movements directed toward the body: closing/folding) (Figures

4.7)

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Figure 4.6 Esteban unfolding into his

intermediate space

Figure 4.7 Mercedes folding into her

near space

3) The specific design elements of the centrifugal/centripetal spatial movement

pathways, that is,, looping/linear, high/low amplitude and rounded/angular

reversals.

Looping movements follow circuitous pathways

Linear movements follow straight pathways

High/low amplitude refers to the size of the excursion of the

centrifugal or centripetal movement.

Angular or rounded reversals influence the way in which movements

change direction. The change in direction may be sharp and angular or

rounded and smooth (Kestenberg-Amighi et al. 1999: 139–142)

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Appendix K

Phrase Analysis and Joey’s Movement

The relevance of the detailed analysis of the ball work with Joey helped me to expand

my thoughts about the relationship of movement phrasing theory discussed earlier and

musical phrasing. In that, both musical and movement phrase can be seen and

experienced as perceivable units of movement/sound that are in some sense

meaningful. They can begin and end while containing a through line. For example, what

we experience as a phrase or phrasing comes from all aspects of LMA/BF including the

‘felt sense’ of what contributes to our personal meaning-making about the concept of

phrasing from the person who has experienced it (Hackney 2002: 239). As a way of

exploring the possible connections between established musical phrasing theory and

notion of movement phrase the following section revisits the discussion in Chapter 2

regarding the ambiguity of phrase structure and discusses the ambiguity of phrase

structure in music the lack of clarity regarding the position of the phrase boundaries in

Satie’s Gnossienne No. 1.

Here, I looked at the opening of the piece, which appeared to me to consist of two

phrases: the first phrases containing 16 beats, the second phrase of 12 beats with an

extension of a further 8 beats (Figure 4.6). The phrase extension is not given a phrase

mark by Satie, creating some ambiguity; however, it seemed that this section belongs to

the previous phrase rather than the subsequent one as it concludes the cadence point

of the phrase. Given the lack of metrical notation in terms of time signature and bar

lines, the piece does seem to sit easily with a 4/4 feel; however, if I assumed this

metrical grouping, the placement of the phrase marks suggested that the departure of

the first three phrases begins on the second beat of the bar rather than the first beat.

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Figure 4.6 Conian analysis of opening phrases of Satie’s Gnossienne No.1

If I tried the conventional application of a strong emphasis on the first beat of the bar –

1234|1234 – I met with little success as a strong emphasis on the first beat seemed to

contradict the initiation of departure of the opening phrase on the second beat. If,

however, the first beat in the bass is the preparation for the initiation of the phrase, the

upbeat or anacrusis, then this throws the rhythmic emphasis forward onto the second

beat – a factor that helps the opening of the phrase free itself from heaviness.

Continuing this rhythmic pattern, it seemed to create an off-beat emphasis through the

rhythmical grouping 234|1 until the third bar of the third phrase when the rhythmic

emphasis shifts to the first beat of the bar – 1234 – thus highlighting the cadence point

before going back to 234|1 as the opening section is repeated. Additionally, the forte in

the penultimate bar accentuates the rhythm in such a way as to suggest that the

concluding bar is cadentially strong. With regard to motivic and melodic-harmonic

analysis, the first phrase consists of a two-bar unit followed by another two-bar unit:

2 2

(a) (b)

The second phrase consists of a three-bar unit followed by a two-bar unit:

3 2

(a) (b)

The a) in phrase 2 can be heard as an augmentation of the original motif plus a full bar,

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and the b) as a fragmentation of the original motif. The relationships of the first two

phrases can be represented in the following Conian scheme (Figure 4.15):

Figure 4.7 Conian analysis of first two phrases of Satie’s Gnossienne No.1

The above pattern can be confirmed by the overall melodic-harmonic shape of the two

phrases, which I took to be a feeling of moving away from the tonic chord creating

tension by the use of upper triad harmony (use of added 13ths) and raised 4ths of the

F-minor scale in bars 2 and 3. This is followed by an expansion of the perfect cadence,

which releases the build-up of tension in bar 7 and is augmented by an extra bar of

rhythmic release of the tonic chord in bars 8 and 9 before leading into a repetition of the

first section at bar 10.

Although highly speculative, in order to interpret the possible relationships between

patterns that emerged out of the movement data and the above ‘traditional’ analysis of

the musical phrasing, I was able to look at the first antecedent phrase (the first 2 bars of

the piece), interpreting the relationship between the two by considering the motion

involved with spatial pathways in terms of moving away from and towards moments in

the music and musical events that happen along the way.

From the very beginning of the first antecedent phrase, I noticed that Joey moved the

ball slightly away from his body as I play the low F in the left hand, seeming to anticipate

the entry of the melody with an outward motion suggesting his relationship to the first

note as an upbeat to the entry of the melody (Figure 4.8).

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Figure 4.8 Movement/music relationships (1)

As I began to play the melody in the right hand, he turned the ball outwards then

immediately inwards in a looping manner as he brought it closer to his body and placed

his other hand on the ball to bring it even closer in to his body, almost cradling it in a

protective way (Figure 4.8). This could be related to the small outward/inward pathway

of the melody line which opens out from a C to an E and then turns back to a D and

then closes to C.

Figure 4.9 Movement/music relationships (2)

He then began to rotate the ball in both hands at the same time as he lifted it up a short

distance in a straight line in front of his body, slightly on the diagonal as seen in Figure

4.9. Here he could be relating to the static nature of the melody (shown in orange) and

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at the same time experiencing the rhythmic drive of the accompaniment in the left hand

which keeps things moving along the pathway in a smooth manner.

Figure 4.10 Movement/music relationships (3)

At the same time, he also flicked his fingers off the ball in a jerky almost explosive

fashion. In the third image in Figure 4.10, we can see his fingers stretched away from

the ball, perhaps in response to the way I play the appoggiaturas in the melody (a

distinctive feature of the piece – circled in blue) and the tension in the harmony created

by Satie’s use of a raised 4th or tritone (F–B♮, circled in green) between the

accompaniment and the melody line, which seemed to be the goal of this phrase, before

releasing outwards to C in the melody and F in the accompaniment at the beginning of

the next phrase. In western classical music, the tritone can be seen as a restless

harmonic and melodic dissonance and can be used to avoid traditional harmony. Satie

appears to be exploring scales which contain tritones in this piece. Evidence of this can

be seen throughout the work but especially in the third section (section C) or bar 27

(Figure 4.19) if we assume that four crotchets comprise one bar.

Figure 4.11F Melodic minor scale with ♯4

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Here, Satie goes one step further with his tonal experiment. This section features a

humorous scale which contains both the B natural (♯4) and the E natural (Major 7th).

These, together with the D natural and the F minor triad, suggest F melodic minor with a

raised 4th. In traditional classical music, the melodic minor scale was only used in its

ascending form:

F G A♭ B C D E F – F E♭ D♭ C B♭ A♭ G F

Satie decides to depart from this rule and uses the melodic minor scale both ascending

and descending:

F G A♭ B C D E F – F E D C B A♭ G F

Perhaps Satie’s instruction to the performer to play ‘questioningly’ here is a reference to

his use of this scale and invites the performer to bring out the unconventional sound

world it explores.

The purpose of the previous example was to explore the movement response and

relationship between Joey’s movement choices and my musical phrasing choices during

a performance of the opening of Satie’s Gnossienne No. 1. My process in interpreting

the response and the relationships was first to watch the video again and again to see

what struck me and what questions came to mind, then to try to relate Joey’s Shape

Flow Design movement patterns to the music in terms of the KMP Space Flow Design

category and determine what factors and which moments seemed particularly

significant to him, and finally to see what this interaction might infer with regard to

addressing the initial research questions.

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Appendix L

Diversions excerpt (bars 1–15)

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Appendix M

Beethoven Sonata in C minor Opus 10 No.1 extract (bars 1–56)

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Appendix N

Detailed description and analysis of each phase of the workshop in

the main study

7.2.1 Phase 1: analysis of Alex’s first performance of the first

phrase of Diversions

In order to contextualize Diversions, I offer a brief discussion of the score before

analysing Alex’s performance. Diversions is structurally straightforward, alternating

between five different themes, or soundbites, and four transitions, ending with a coda

and a return to the opening soundbite. The first four bars introduce the main soundbite,

which is repeated throughout the piece in different ways. The melody is played by the

right hand in the first three bars and by the left hand in Bar 4 with a counter-melody in

the right hand. The tempo is slow and, although the meter changes every bar, a steady

quaver beat can be felt throughout the piece. The piece is post-tonal but there are

moments of jazz-derived chords and whole-tone harmony such as in Bar 4 (see

Appendix L Figure 7.1).

There are some phrasing instructions written on the score. For example, in Bars 1, 2

and 3 the phrasing marks seem to suggest accented slurred articulation rather than

structural phrasing. In Bar 4, the phrasing is written in the left hand only, indicating the

undulating melodic line. There are detailed dynamic markings on the score and the

piece opens with a piano chord using the soft pedal. In Bar 2, there is a crescendo to

mezzoforte and an instruction to release the soft pedal.

Returning to Bar 3, there is a gradual build up in intensity as the melody in the right

hand accents the rhythmic grouping 123/123/123. The dynamics also increase in

increments from piano to mezzopiano to mezzoforte throughout this bar. Adding to the

intensity, the right and left hands move in contrary motion in the first four beats of Bar 3

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before joining together to play in similar motion in the following five beats. This surging

dynamic, together with the 23/1 accented groups of three beats, leads to the focal point

of the first phrase at the beginning of Bar 4 where the dynamic is forte. The intensity

immediately begins to diminish as a decrescendo over the next four beats to

mezzopiano, which brings the phrase to its arrival briefly interrupted by an unexpected

accented slur on the seventh beat in the left hand.

Alex’s phrasing contours (in black) reflect his decision to play the first phrase as two

groups of two bars, although it seems as though the first sub-phrase overlaps or

continues into the second sub-phrase with only a slight feeling of arriving somewhere

but without stopping. His contours shows a rise at the end of Bar 3, which leads to the

focal point at the beginning of Bar 4, after which his contour falls gently and ends on the

seventh beat of Bar 4. At the end of the Bar 4, his annotations show a clear arrival point

where he has written the word ‘stop’ over the last crotchet rest. The next section

describes his first performance of the first four bars of Diversions.

Before Alex started to play, he spent 20 seconds preparing himself at the piano (see

Figure 7.2). He seemed to be silently going through the music and making himself feel

more comfortable at the piano before he began. At one stage, he pulls at his collar,

which can suggest many things such as nervousness, feeling uncomfortable, his collar

being too tight, or even a habitual movement he always makes before starting to play.

Once settled, he places his hands in quite a tense manner, quite high on the keyboard.

His elbows are lifted quite high and his arms are in an intermediate reach from his body.

He made small up and down movements with his hands in a regular rhythmic pulse,

without making any sound and then suddenly (the final image in Figure 7.2) started to

play with hardly any visible signs of anticipation or feeling of up-beat apart from a slight

rather stiff movement forward with his upper body as he played the opening chord.

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Figure 7.2 Silent preparation at the piano (1)

Alex played the first cluster chord in the first beat of Bar 1 quietly. His movement was in

near space and he was leaning over the piano keys slightly with a straight back. Figure

7.3 shows his movement alongside the score as he plays the first four bars (the first

phrase) of Diversions. I refer to this Figure as I continue to describe his performance

and point out strategic moments that I can use for discussion purposes later on to

pinpoint specific issues that can be discussed in greater depth.

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Figure 7.3 Alex playing the first phrase of Diversions with score aligned

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After playing the first chord, Alex began to make a slight crescendo towards the third

beat and then made a decrescendo over the next 4–7 beats. This gave a feeling of the

anacrusis to the crusis on beat 3 followed by a period of motion on beats 4, 5, 6 and 7.

In Bar 2, he started to play quietly then made a crescendo through the bar as marked

on the score. Until now, his tempo had been steady and a sense of rhythmic flow could

be felt. However, in Bar 3 (see Figs 7.2 and 7.3 for overview) Alex seemed to hesitate

slightly too long over the crotchet rest in the last 2 beats in Bar 2, his hands hovering

over the keyboard, resulting in a break in the rhythmic flow (see boxed image, Figure

7.4).

Figure 7.4 Last crotchet of Bar 2 leading into Bar 3 of Diversions

Here he slowed the tempo down and the sense of grouping emphasized by the accents

indicated on the score in the right hand was lost. The balance between the left and right

hand is disorganized and jerky and the sense of the triplet movement in the left hand

was obscured by the misplaced jarring accents in the right hand. He played this bar in a

disjointed arrhythmical way with erratic fluctuations of tempo that suggested difficulty in

implementing his musical phrasing choices in these bars. He picked up the rhythmic

flow again in Bar 4 and created a convincing focal emphasis on the first beat of the bar

before making a decrescendo over the next two beats (Figure 7.5). This is echoed in his

movement as he leaned forward nearer to the keyboard in a less upright position in a

forward inclined, descending manner.

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Figure 7.5 First 3 beats of Bar 4 of Diversions

At this point, he made a hesitation just before beat 4, which disrupted the rhythmic flow

again and he seemed to lose control of the decrescendo, maintaining a forte dynamic,

which contradicted the indication on the score, where the decrescendo continued until

beat 5 to a mezzopiano dynamic (Figure 7.6).

Figure 7.6 Beats 4, 5, 6 of Bar 4 of Diversions

As a result, Alex’s dynamic level seemed too loud to him and the intertwining flow

between the voices of the left hand semiquaver melody is unsteady and bumpy; the

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melody line losst its sense of shape as a smooth, gently undulating contour (see

Figures 7.2 and 7.3 for an overview). Alex regained his poise on beat 7 of Bar 4 where

he placed an accent on the first quaver of a slurred pair of quavers giving a sense of

arrival of the first phrase before lifting his hands to hover over the keyboard during the

crotchet rest. This gave a clear indication of the arrival of the first phrase and his

intention to create a sense of stillness before embarking on the next phrase at bar 5

(Figure 7.7)

Figure 7.7 Beats 7–10 of Bar 4 of Diversions

In the next section, I present an analysis of the Alex’s movement patterns in the

movement/music exercises in Phase 2 of the workshop.

7.2.2 Phase 2: analysis of the movement/music exercises in relation to

Diversions

In this section, I used the Laban- based Shape Flow Design category of the KMP

system (Kestenberg-Amighi 1999: 139) as discussed in section 3.8 to describe, analyse

and study the qualities of movements Alex used in Phase 2 of the workshop: the

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movement/music exercises. As in my pilot study, I considered the three aspects of my

participant’s movements identified in the Shape Flow Design category, namely:

His use of surrounding personal space (i.e., near, intermediate or far reach space);

The basic movement design of his spatial pathways in terms of: Centrifugal

movement (movement directed away from the body: opening/unfolding) and

Centripetal movement (movement directed toward the body: closing/folding); and

The specific movement design factors in terms of the qualities of the movements:

Looping/linear (movements that follow circuitous/straight pathways);

High/low amplitude (refers to the size of the excursion of the centrifugal or

centripetal movements); and

Angular/rounded reversals (refers to the way in which movements change

direction, either sharp and angular or smooth and rounded).

Here, I focused on the development section of Part 2, which included the three main

movement/music exercises, namely 1) identifying phrase departure and arrivals by

passing a tennis ball from one hand to the other while vocalizing the music; 2) Carving

(a shape change which is oriented to creating or experiencing volume in interaction with

the environment Hackney 2002: 222) the musical pathway of the phrases with a light

football while imagining the music, and 3) showing the moments of tension and release

in the music by manipulating a Thera-Band while imagining music and phrasing

choices. Next, I focus on the first movement/music exercise (described in section 6.4.1).

Figure 7.8 shows Alex Carving - contouring his shape change to the environment

in his interpretation of the musical pathway of the opening phrase of Diversions

with the tennis ball while vocalizing the music. Listening to his vocalization, he

sang the top line of the melody in the right hand for the first three beats then

switches to the second line until the end of the bar. He repeats this format in the

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second bar. In the third bar he alternated between the first and second lines in the

right hand but clearly sang the right hand C♯ at the beginning of Bar 4. During the

rest of Bar 4 he sang the semiquaver pattern in the left hand and concluded with

the pair of slurred quavers also in the left hand of the score. He sang the extract

with the marked dynamic markings and included a rallentando at the end of bar

one and made an accelerando at the end of Bar 2. He reinstated the first tempo

established in Bar 1 at Bar 3 and made a slight accelerando into Bar 4, after which

he pulled the tempo back a little before slowing down significantly as he came to

the end of the phrase at the end of Bar 4.

The sequence of 18 images in Figure 7.8 offers a way of seeing how Alex moves

with the tennis ball as he vocalizes the extract in terms of the three aspects of

Shape Flow Design and, of gleaning a deeper understanding of his individual

musical choices through his movement interaction with the music. (See Appendix

G for the full score of this extract)

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Figure 7.8 Movement/music exercise 1 with tennis ball

Alex started with the tennis ball in his right hand. His arms stretched out to the side of

his body in a far reach position (image 1). He held the ball far away from his body

showing the departure of the phrase by smoothly tracing a horizontal linear contour in a

centripetal manner. His left arm remained stretched out as a counterbalance (image 2).

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He continued to move the ball horizontally in a centripetal manner, taking it slightly

higher and closer to his body. His left arm stayed in a similar position but he lifted his

left shoulder, which seemed to cause tension in the shoulders and neck (image 3). He

took the ball slightly higher and relaxed his left shoulder, taking the arm slightly back in

a centrifugal manner so that there was a twist in his torso (image 4). He continued to

move the ball slowly in an upward horizontal linear fashion until it was almost in line with

his shoulder (image 5). At this point, he quickly swept the ball up to a far reach position

above his head and his left arm suddenly dropped to his side in a relaxed manner

(image 6). He made a quick loop with the ball to reach even further, dropping his head

slightly forward (image 7).

At this point, he made a rounded change of direction and started to lower the ball in a

curved pathway toward his torso (image 8). He continued to bring the ball down to chest

height (images 9) then he suddenly looped the ball in a high amplitude centripetal

figure-of-eight manner bringing the ball closer to his torso in intermediate reach space.

He dropped the level further by bending his knees to add to the bouncy rhythmic nature

of tracing a figure-of-eight in space (images 10, 11 and 12). He followed this sudden

movement by moving the ball in an ascending linear fashion to above shoulder height in

far reach (image 13). He continued to stretch to his reach limit and lifts his shoulder to

facilitate his stretch (image 14) before beginning to move the ball across his body in a

curved manner (image 15). His left hand began to open in anticipation of receiving the

ball. At this point, both of his hands moved in a centripetal fashion in contrary motion

toward each other with a gentle twist of his torso (image 16). He placed the ball gently in

his left hand, enhancing his upper body twist (image 17) before suddenly dropping the

right hand down near his body and sweeping the ball out in a curved manner to his left

side, maintaining a slight twist in his torso at the juncture point of the first and second

phrases (image 18).

In order to attribute meaning to the movement data analysis shown in Figure 7.8 and to

gain a deeper understanding of his individual musical phrasing choices through his

movement interaction with the music, I interpreted Alex’s Space Flow Design movement

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patterns by considering which movement aspects he used, how he used them and what

this might mean. Figure 7.9 shows his changes of shape in space (near, intermediate,

far) in relation to his musical phrasing choices. In the KMP system the changes in shape

in space can happen symmetrically and asymmetrically. Symmetrical changes express

shifts in affective relations with the environment as a well as an individual’s feelings.

Growing into far space and shrinking into near space in a symmetrical way can show

how an individual responds to what is happening around them and their inner moods.

For example, in a musical performance context a performer may shrink into near space

at a ‘cold’ or ‘lonely’ moment in the music and grow into far space at a ‘warm’ or ‘joyous’

moment. This idea is grounded in the process of breathing – we grow with inhalation

and shrink with exhalation.

Asymmetrical changes can express attraction or compulsion towards discrete a stimuli.

For example, we usually shrink away from something unpleasant and grow toward

something pleasant. Unlike symmetrical changes one part of the body can shrink into

near space while another can grow into far space. In terms of music performance, a

performer, particularly a pianist who often has to respond to different stimuli in the left

and right hands, may shrink away into near space with the right hand and arm at a

certain technically ‘uncomfortable’ moment in the music and at the same time the left

hand and arm may grow towards a certain technically ‘comfortable’ moment. This idea

is grounded in reflexive behaviour and relates to an individual’s system of contracting

and extending the body in space. Both symmetrical and asymmetrical changes in shape

can reflect the individual’s style of relating and feelings of relatedness to self, others,

objects and the environment. In terms of music performance this can connect to the

individual performer’s style of relating to other performers, the music, the instrument and

the environment in which the performance takes place. The KMP system points out that

these connections are influenced by socio-cultural experience, personal preference,

developmental stages and situational factors.

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Figure 7.9 Alex’s reach space movement patterns to the first phrase of Diversions

In Figure 7.9 we can see how Alex began in far reach space with both arms far away

from his body. His symmetrical open movement seemed to embrace the departure of

the phrase, as though he could comfortably feel the connection between the departure

and arrival point as an imaginary or felt course or pathway. He seemed to maintain this

connection with symmetrical wide-open, far-to-intermediate reaching movements until

image 6, where he continued to keep an open movement but changed to move in an

asymmetrical way until images 10–13. Here, something thought-provoking happened.

He suddenly brought the ball into near-to-intermediate space and then just as suddenly

out to intermediate space again. Relating this moment to the video data, this was the

instant when he was vocalizing beats 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 in Bar 3. Referring to the analysis

of his performance, this is where he encountered discomfort in finding a balance

between the hands and clarifying the rhythmic flow with regard to the grouping of the

notes and the accents in the right hand. When he moved to this section of the bar with

the tennis ball, he seemed to feel the rhythmic emphasis of the note grouping by

dropping his weight and making a swooping swinging figure-of-eight movement with the

ball towards and away from his body. In this way, he seemed to express the anacrusic

nature of beats 8 and 9 as an impulse leading purposefully into the focal point of the

phrase at the beginning of Bar 4 in a way he was unable to do at the piano. This

suggests he had the intention to play this section of the phrase in this way but

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something obstructed his realization. This could have been as a result of many things

such as not knowing the notes securely enough, unfamiliarity playing complex rhythms,

a tendency to accent the first beat of notes that are grouped together, a tendency to

tense the shoulders when a difficulty arises or a lack of clarity regarding understanding

the movement of the rhythm or rhythmic flow towards the focal point of the phrase.

Referring back to Figure 7.3, Alex gave very little away in his movement at the keyboard

as to what was happening at this moment; however, his shoulders were raised slightly

through images 14–17 and his back seemed quite straight and tense, especially in

image 17. This movement is in stark contrast to his swooping, swinging movement at

the same moment during the first movement exercise.

Along with changes in shape, Alex created movements in his personal space. These

movements can move away from the body (centrifugal) or toward the body (centripetal).

They are classified in terms of linearity, their degree of amplitude and their angularity.

These directional movements can bridge distant objects with the self and can show an

ability to contact the world outside the self. This seemed as though he was focused on

on his accomplishing his intention for the musical phrasing and had a goal he was

aiming at. Additionally, it could mean that that he clearly aware of his location in space.

In this way, it could show that he was coordinating his movement more easily and as a

result achieving a stronger sense of agency by showing clearly where he wanted to go.

This is important as it could help to improve the fluidity of at the piano. In the KMP

system, these movement can serve multiple functions including defensive ones,

learning, identifying objects in space, labelling and bridging space amongst others.

Exploring this further, Figures 7.10 and 7.11 show Alex’s movement designs in space in

terms of his use of centrifugal and centripetal movements.

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Figure 7.10 Alex’s body movement designs in space in response to the first phrase of Diversions

Figure 7.11 Condensed version of Alex’s body movement designs in space

Here it seemed that we could see Alex’s sense of movement awareness continually

interchanging between opening out and closing in. He appeared to maintain this way of

moving, suggesting an experience of the movement of breathing and the perpetuity of

this sensation. Yet his movements were not regular and, a variety of time spans or

lengths of breath over which he opens out and closes in seemed to be evident.

Additionally, the sudden changes of expansion and contraction in images 10–13 could

be related to the sudden figure-of-eight movement Alex made at this moment. This

could reflect Alex’s attitude toward investing energy in his movement. In terms of

LMA/BF this could relate to the Effort component that describes the dynamic quality of

the movement – the feeling-tone, the texture (Hackney 2002:219). The dynamic quality

of his movement here could have been created by his sudden inhalation and exhalation

showing a change of mood and hence, revealed an inroad into his expressivity and his

intention to create a rhythmically forceful moment in the music at this point in Bar 3.

Taking this analysis one step further, Figure 7.12 shows Alex’s combined use of

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Specific Design Factors: looping/linear, high/low amplitude and angular/rounded

reversals.

Figure 7.12 Alex’s specific body movement design factors for the first phrase of Diversions:

movement exercise 1 with a tennis ball (horizontal axis = image number)

Here we can see Alex’s predominant experience of low amplitude movement qualities.

This might suggest his intention to the slow tempo and the relatively close proximity of

the voicing in the first phrase of the music. His hands were close together, at the piano,

and it was not necessary to make big outward movements. The notes are clustered

together in the middle of the keyboard in Bars 1–3 before opening out slightly in Bar 4.

We can see in image 4 (Figure 7.9) that Alex began to make a small looping movement

to perhaps indicate his intention to express a slight opening out of the phrase at this

point. This could also relate to the anacrusic nature of the first two beats of the first bar,

relating his inhalation of breath with a looping movement quality.

Alex shows fairly little use of angular reversals in this exercise. His greater proclivity

seemed to be for curved rounded reversals or changes of direction rather than jerky

adjustments. Along with his propensity for low amplitude movements away from and

toward his body, this seemed to suggest that his intention was perhaps serious, steady

and more cautious than carefree and fluid. However, at one point, he seemed to

abandon this steady cautious attitude by making large looping movements (see images

10–13 of Figure 7.9). This seemed to disrupt the sense of calm equilibrium he had

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created, showing a resilience to the flow of the music and a willingness to let go of the

careful small linear movement qualities previously used. This shift in quality was

surprising and related in particular to Bar 3 of the music. Here, he also vocalized the

score loudly and hollowed out his torso, bending his knees to facilitate the dynamic shift

in his movement quality, before returning to a more sedate contained linear way of

moving as the phrase came to its’ moment of arrival. This sudden flurry of highly

animated movement seemed to suggest that Alex had chosen to make this moment the

focal point of the phrase, culminating at the first beat of Bar 4 where he recouped his

energy and prepares for the arrival and juncture of the next phrase at the end of Bar 4.

This could relate to his increasing sense of agency and ease at expressing his musical

intentions, which in turn, may inform his playing at the piano.

There was a fair balance between Alex’s use of linear and looping qualities and he

maintained the plasticity of the phrase. There was little evidence of any stiffness in his

movement, unlike in his playing of this phrase at the piano, particularly in Bars 3 and 4.

There seemed to be no uncertainty here, and even though he may have moved

cautiously initially, the way he moved fluidly through space to certain specific goals,

interacting with musical events along the way and subsequently moving away from the

goal toward the next point of call, showed a sense of ease and focus. It is also

interesting to note that his movement away from the piano seemed to be more easefully

fluid that his movement during his performance at the piano.

As a way of deepening understanding of Alex’s experience and to assist in attributing

further meaning to the analysis I returned to Mark Johnson’s theory of movement-

derived Image Schemata (2007). This helped me to further understand how Alex

experienced the movement exercises and derived musical meaning from expressing his

musical phrasing choices through his movement. For example, Johnson’s Near–Far

schema could relate to Alex’s movement experience connecting with his surrounding

personal space (the environment): sometimes moving close to the body and at other

times far away. The Source–Path–Goal schema and the Centre–Periphery schema

could also relate to Alex’s movement experience of carving out spatial pathways in that

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his movement may suggest a departure point from which he initiated his movement

along a spatial pathway towards a goal. This also could relate to LMA/BF Shape Flow

with regard to Directional Movement – where goal-orientated shape change can create

a bridge from the self to the environment (Hackney 2002: 222). In addition, carving can

provide a quality of movement that leads to integrating the self and the world and can

suggest the involvement in a co-creative relationship with others or the surrounding

environment (Hackney: ibid.). In the case of Diversions, this seemed to have been the

musical event in bar 3. In terms of the Centre–Periphery schema, this seemed to relate

to the basic design of Alex’s spatial pathways in terms of movements directed away

from the body and towards it. Again, this can also be related to LMA/BF theory and the

Space component especially regarding the Alex’s ownership of the space and the way

he moved in his kinaesphere – exploring how to approach his kinaesphere and reveal it.

Working out where the body intends to go, and how he could connect to the space by

establishing a clear pathway for the movement (Hackney 2002: 224). I return to this

discussion in Chapter 8 where I begin to draw together the data and consider how a

combination of movement awareness and specific image-schemata could possibly

provide a means of transforming movement experiences to implementing musical

phrasing choices during performance at the piano. As a way of, exploring Alex’s

experience further, the next section, presents the third part of the workshop, namely

Alex’s second performance of Diversions, which occurred directly after the

movement/music exercises in Phase 2.

7.2.3 Phase 3: analysis of Alex’s second performance of the first

phrase of Diversions

In this section, I focus on three particular moments during Alex’s first performance. This

offers a means of observing any changes in the way his musical choices are

implemented during his second performance. The moments I looked at were:

just before he begins to play and the first beat in Bar 1;

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last crotchet beat of Bar 2 leading into Bar ; and

beats 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 in Bar 4.

The first time Alex performed Diversions, he spent 20 seconds silently preparing himself

before beginning to play. In contrast, the second time he spent 4 seconds and seemed

to be more relaxed. This could be a result of feeling more comfortable in the

environment, feeling more confident about playing the piece for a second time, or

becoming more used to being video-recorded, as well as his movement experience.

Figure 7.13 shows a comparison of his movements.

a) First performance (20 seconds) b) Second performance (4 seconds)

Figure 7.13 Comparison of Alex’s silent preparatory movements (2)

In the moments before Alex began to play I can saw a slight difference in the way he

moved his head, shoulders, back, torso and in the positioning of his arms and hands. If I

compare images 7.14a) with 7.14b), his head inclined to the left which initiated a lean to

the left first with the left shoulder followed by the whole torso. His back was not as

straight and his shoulders were slightly dropped to allow more freedom in the neck and

shoulders. His shoulders were in line with his hips rather than in front of them. This

could suggest that he was more relaxed and less anxious and that he was more

comfortable. He was leaning over to the left as he considered starting to play and I can

awe a perceptible lift in his hands and a release into the keyboard in the second

performance as he played the first chord using a gentle downward movement of his

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hands into the keyboard (see boxed images). This could suggest a greater sense of

anticipation in the second performance that was not present in his first performance. It

could also suggest a stronger connection with the instrument rather than the restraint he

showed in the moments before he gave his first performance where his back appeared

to be very stiff and his arms were tense and shoulders lifted.

During the last crotchet beat of Bar 2 leading into Bar 3 (see Figure 7.14), Alex seemed

this time, to keep a more fluid sense of rhythmic flow by not holding on to the crotchet

rest for too long as he did in his first performance.

Figure 7.14 A sense of rhythmic flow: last crotchet beat in Bar 2 leading into Bar 3

Noticing a change to his first performance, he maintained the tempo at the beginning of

Bar 3 and began the first group of quavers very quietly, appearing to soften into the

keys. The balance between the accented slur in the right hand and the triplet figure in

the left hand seemed to show more composure, and the accents are sensitively

sounded in a piano dynamic. However, the rhythmic flow was restrained in the quaver

rest at beat 4. Here, Alex seemed to struggle to find the notes and although he

appeared to try to keep the flow liquid, he faltered and fell heavily on the next pair of

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accented notes and the disjointed hampered nature of his first performance returned at

this point. Indeed, he slowed the tempo radically and the last two beats of Bar 3 are

very heavy and clumsy. Unlike the first performance he seemed to find it challenging to

pick up the flow again at the beginning of Bar 4 and stumbled through the whole of Bar

4, unable to release the rhythmic flow and the dynamic contour of the intertwining

melody in the left hand. As a result, he seemed to lose the sense of arrival of the phrase

at the end of Bar 4, which was present in his first performance.

On reflection, it seemed that although Alex’s second performance began with more

poise and focus and he seemed to be accomplishing his intentions regarding musical

phrasing more confidently, as he moved to the third bar he appeared to lose grasp of

his intentions as if something was in the way, blocking his interpretation. From this

point, his second performance seemed to be more of a struggle. He appeared to try to

connect with what he was trying to say through phrasing the music with regard to

shaping dynamics and melodic emphasis, even though he did not seem to fully

accomplish this. This could relate to the feeling of ‘goingness’ or continuity or his

movement as at this point he seemed to be containing his feelings rather than letting

them outpour. Later, in the post-workshop discussion Alex, said that he found the

second performance more challenging, expressively, because he was thinking too much

about the new movement experiences he had just had and was trying to incorporate

them. In this way, it seemed he was disconnecting himself from expressing his

intentions and trying to accommodate new learning. This often seems to happen when

learning takes place. However, his movements seemed to become more flexible, pliant,

submitting to the pianistic awkwardness and difficulty of the score in places where the

right and left hand voices are very closely intertwined. Also, by the way he used his

back in a more fluid way and the way his shoulders were less rigid, particularly his left

shoulder, which dips and rises as he plays seemed to show more ease and comfort at

the instrument. Additionally, the apparent freedom of his neck and the way he inclined

his head to the left gently as though he was listening more intently to the sound he is

producing suggested further connection with himself, his movement and the sound he

was making. This movement is referred into his torso and he allows his upper body to

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move fluidly in a side to side motion even though it appears he is having difficulty with

finding the notes.

At this point, it was clear from his facial expression that he was not happy with the

sounds he was creating and he appeared to get frustrated and overwhelmed by the

experience. Indeed, after his second performance, he asked if he could do it again. He

said that he would like more time to think about and apply the movement exercises to

the piece. This request resulted in a third performance a few days later. This was not

planned, but seemed to be an appropriate opportunity to allow Alex to work on the piece

outside the research context and to give him a chance to try some of the movement

exercises in his own time.

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Appendix O

The four principles of Skinner Releasing Technique (SRT) Multi-directional skeletal alignment

As in other dance techniques, SRT views correct alignment of the skeleton as a crucial foundation upon which the fundamental and qualitative movement of a dancer rests. Alignment, however, is not viewed as a forced placement of skeletal parts, such as tucking the hips under and pulling the stomach in, or keeping the shoulders down. In other words, alignment is not seen as a static position which is consciously held. Rather, skeletal alignment is viewed as a dynamic process of continual adjustments to changes of weight in space and lies beneath conscious control. SRT teaches alignment through suggesting the existence of certain directional patterns within the skeletal structure which operate throughout the continual adjustments of bones and muscles during movement. The directional patterns are: 1) the head floats off the top of the spine; 2) the shoulders drop and fall open to the sides; 3) the ribs drop toward the feet; 4) the spine lengthens; and 5) the back widens. These patterns guide the student in experiencing alignment which gives the greatest freedom and coordination in movement. They are not forced but rather come into play gradually in response to the influence of imagined movement.

Multi-directional balancing

In SRT, contrary to many dance techniques, no one stationary centre of balance is used. Joan Skinner writes:

Balancing on two feet becomes a multi-directional experience in

space. There is not, as found in traditional methods, a singular

reference point for balancing, such as a set of muscles, a

particular centre of the body, or a concept of upness and

downness (Skinner, 1969. An Organic Approach to the Training of

dancers and the Aesthetic Education of the Layman, unpublished

essay).

. Balance is also viewed as a dynamic process since shifts in weight cause shifts in actual centres of balance. This view is analogous to the implications of Einstein’s theory of relativity, which advises the scientist to stop looking for any absolute, stationary frame of reference in the universe. The only constant is change.

Autonomy

In order to allow the multi-directional patterns full play, the limbs and torso must

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have the ability to move autonomously; that is, the movement of the arms or any other part in any direction does not interfere with the operation of other directional patterns. Even as the arms move above the body and extend out into space, the other directional patterns continue undisturbed. Furthermore, movement anywhere in the body does not have to block breathing. The breath can also be autonomous and unbound.

Economy

Closely associated with the principle of autonomy is the concept of economy. A given movement uses only the necessary muscles with the minimum expenditure of energy. Thus, one does not tighten the shoulders to raise the arms or hold the breath to extend the leg.

(Taken from Skinner, J., Davis, B., Davidson, R., Wheeler, K., and Metcalfe, S., (1979). Skinner Releasing Technique. Contact Quarterly, 5: 1–8)

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Appendix P

Semi-structured interview schedule (pilot study)

The semi-structured interview questions were based on a loose agenda which gave me

a chance to follow up responses and reflective discussion raised during the pilot study

workshops. The items which helped me design the interview questions were:

what was their motivation for volunteering to take part in the movement/music

research workshops,

what was their overall impression of a movement/music approach to music making

task such as practising and performance,

which movement exercises they felt worked best for them and why,

what they were thinking, feeling and imagining during the movement exercises,

what was this experience like,

how they might integrate aspects of a movement-based approach into their

established methods of practising

A summary of the interview schedule I used is as follows:

Interview schedule

Thank you for being willing to take part in a follow-up interview to the previous

movement/music research workshops you have been involved in. I have a list of

topics and some key questions to facilitate our interview as a conversation so that

we can expand or refocus our discussion if the need arises.

List of topics

Experiences

Thoughts

Feelings

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Views

Images

Key questions

1. First of all, please could you tell me what instrument you play or if you are

a vocalist, in which range you are classified?

2. Can you tell me about how you came to be interested in music and in wanting to

sing/play the instrument you play now?

3. What were some of the stages of your instrumental training?

4. Can you tell me about any music teachers that used movement in your lessons?

5. Why did you decide to volunteer to take part in the movement/music workshops?

6. What was your experience of a body movement approach compared to the way

you normally practise?

7. What are your thoughts about this way of working?

9. Can you describe your experience of what it was like when you were doing the

movement exercises?

10. What did you think worked especially well for you? Why?

11. Can you tell me about how you reflected on the experience of doing the

movement exercises?

12. Have you tried any of the exercises out in your own time, in your own practice

session? How did it go? What was it like?

Thank you for taking part in this interview. I appreciate the time you have given

and the effort you have put in to this research project. Is there anything else you

would like to add before we close the interview?

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Appendix Q

Image Schemata table (diagrams are incomplete)

This table presents a list of Mark Johnson’s Image Schemata referred to/discussed in this thesis taken

from his book, The Body in the Mind (1987). The Verticality schema is also discussed in George Lakoff’s

book, Woman, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal about the Mind (1987).

Image Schema Diagram Description

Compulsion A Compulsion schema exists as a continuous, comparable pattern of, or in, a particular experience or cognition that we have of compulsion. For instance, it is present in our perception of a jet plane being forced down the runway, or in our understanding of forces acting on continental plates or in our felt sense of peer pressure (Johnson 1987: 2 and 45).

Containment

A Containment schema exists as a bodily experience of boundedness. It is present in our awareness of our bodies as three-dimensional containers into which we put certain things (food, water, air) and out of which other things emerge (food, water wastes, air and blood etc.). We move in and out of rooms, clothes, vehicles and numerous kinds of bounded spaces. We handle objects, placing them in containers (cups, boxes, can, bags etc.) (Johnson 1987: 21–23).

From–To or Path Source–Path–Goal

(Saslaw 1996:219)

A Path schema exists in our experience of moving from one place to another. This schema is a recurrent structure manifested in a number of events such as a) walking from one place to another b) throwing a ball to a friend c) the melting of ice into water d) the path of a bullet shot into the air e) an imaginary path from earth to the nearest star outside the solar system. For each of these very different cases we have the same schema with the same basic parts and relations but with different interpretations. (Johnson 1987: 28). In all of these cases there is a single recurring image-schematic pattern with a definite internal structure; 1) a source, or starting point; 2) a goal, or end point; and 3) a sequence of contiguous locations connecting the source with the goal. The consequence of this schema is that in moving from A to B we have passed through all the intermediary points in between and that there is a certain amount of directionality implied however, this does not necessarily mean that the path goes only in one direction or only at one speed etc... (Johnson 1987: 113–114).

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In–Out

This schema represents an enormous number of orientational possibilities a) Mary got out/in the car b) Spot jumped out/in his pen c) He squeezed out some toothpaste d) get out of bed/get in to bed e) drown out the music etc. In each of these cases there is a fairly straightforward spatial orientation among objects, people, animals and substances. (Johnson 1987: 32–33). LM = landmark and TR = trajectory.

Blockage A Blockage schema exists in our attempts to interact forcefully with objects and persons within our environment where an obstacle that blocks or resist our force. When a baby learns to crawl, for instance, it encounters a wall that blocks its further progress in some direction. The baby must either stop, ceasing its exertion of force in the initial direction, or it must redirect its force. It can try to go over the obstacle, around it or even through it, where there is sufficient power to do so. (Johnson 1987: 45).

Removal of Restraint

The Removal of Restraint schema exists in our experience of feeling that some potential restraint has been removed. When the door is open we are free to come into the room (Johnson 1987: 47).

Attraction The attraction schema exists in our experience of feeling ourselves physically attracted to something or someone. The force is not gravitational, in the standard sense, but is a kind of gravitation toward an object for instance, in the way a magnet draws a piece of steel toward itself, a vacuum cleaner pulls dirt into itself and the earth pulls us back down when we jump (Johnson 1987: 47).

Vertical The verticality schema emerges from our tendency to employ an up–down orientation in picking out meaningful structures for our experiences. For instance, in perceiving a tree, our felt sense of standing upright, the activity of climbing the stairs, forming an image of a flagpole, measuring the height of your children, experiencing the level of water rising in the bath. It also relates to our understanding of quantity in that ‘prices keep go up, the number of books each year is rising, turn down the heat suggests that we understand more (increase) as being orientated up and less (decrease) as being orientated down (Johnson 1987: xiv and Lakoff 1987: 276–277, 288).

Balance Group: Axis Balance and Equilibrium

The experience of balance is basic for our coherent experience of the world and for our survival in it. The balance schema exists in our experience of an activity we learn with our bodies and not by grasping a set of rules or concepts – balancing is something we do. For instance the dancer stands on pointe, wobbles and lowers to standing on a flat foot. The dancer tries again, and again and again until a new world opens up – the dancer knows when the balance is right, knows how to make adjustments, and ‘has a feel’ for the patterns of bodily movement that generate the proper patterns of the body in motion on pointe. We also come to know the meaning of balance through the related experience of bodily equilibrium and loss of equilibrium through our bodily experiences. For instance, a

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pianist may experience that there is too much tension in her shoulders, her hands are too cold, her arms feel too heavy, her fingers are not delicate enough on the keys, her legs are shaking with anxiety and her hands are sweaty. Things are felt ‘out of balance’ – there is too much or not enough and the balancing process is upset and action needs to been taken to restore balance so that everything is set right again. (Johnson 1987:75).

Centre–Periphery

The Centre–Periphery schema emerges from our experience of the way our world radiates from our bodies as centres from which we see, hear, touch, taste and smell our world (what about feel and sense of movement?- authors question). From our central vantage point we can focus our attention on one object after another. At a certain distance from this centre our world fades off into a horizon allowing us to move in other directions toward a new horizon presently beyond our grasp. In our worlds some things, events and persons are more important than others-they loom larger in our experience and are more central to our interactions. Others are relatively peripheral at a given point in time. (Johnson 1987: 124-125).

Near–Far The near–far schema is listed in Johnson’s work but in both his 1987 and 2007 books remains under discussed. However, linked to the Centre–Periphery schema, the Near-Far schema exists in our experience of stretching out from the centre of our world and contracting in. What is considered near will depend on the context; once this is established, a scale is defined for the relative nearness to the centre (Johnson 1987: 125).

Scalarity The Scalarity schema is basic to both the quantitative and qualitative aspects of our experience. With respect to the quantitative aspects, we experience our world as populated with discrete objects that we can group in various ways and substances whose amount we can increase and decrease. We can add objects to a pile and we can take them away. With respect to qualitative aspects, we experience certain objects and events as having certain degrees of intensity. The Scalarity schema can be differentiated from the vertical and path schemas by its more or less fixed directionality and its cumulative character (Johnson 1987: 122–123).

Enablement The Enablement schema exists in our experience of focusing on our acts of manipulation and movement and the awareness of a felt sense of power or lack of power to perform some action. For instance you can sense that you have the power to open the piano lid, pick up the piano stool and the music scores but not to lift the piano. There is a potential path of motion a definite ‘directness’ involved in this schema. That is, you feel able to push the piano over to the corner or to lift your hands up to the piano keyboard without encountering any barriers (Johnson 1987: 47).